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HISTORICAL SKETCH 

AND 

GUIDE TO THE ALAMO 


















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LEONORA BENNETT 
















SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS 
1904 











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LIBRARY cf C0Nii>?£S5 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 17'l9U4 

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CLASS «o XXc. No 

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Copyright by Leonora Bennett 

San Antonio, Texas 

1904 



PRESS of 

JAMES T. RONEY & CO. 
CHICAGO 



PART I. 



IN THE BEGINNING. 



The history of Texas has been recorded in the 
blood of its martyrs. 

The Lexington of the American revolution had its 
counterpart in the Alamo ; San Jacinto was the York- 
town of the Lone Star. 

Naturally, the greater American revolt was greater 
by virtue of the greatness of the interests involved ; 
but the struggles, defeats and success of the Texas 
wars for independence are thrilling in interest and 
equally as illustrative of the courage, fortitude and 
self-denial of the American pioneer as those which 
characterized the contest between the American col- 
onies and England. 

In that contest an Anglo-Saxon foe pursued a civil- 
ized warfare. In the Texas revolution the enemy was 
a Latin. Too often was his side of it waged upon 
the principle that "all is fair in love and war," massa- 
cre, rapine and arson weaving their red thread 
throughout the course of the struggle. 



The tale of the Alamo is one of the blackest of the 
blots with which the historian has to deal. It had no 
equal in the American revolution, nor yet in the war 
between the North and the South. 

It is regretable that but little is known to most 
Americans of the details of the struggles for inde- 
pendence which at last brought the magnificent area 
compassed by the borders of Texas into a position 
to be united with the great galaxy of commonwealths 
by annexation. The principles involved were the same 
as those that put the colonies of New England in 
armed array against the mother country — impositions, 
extortions and denial of self-government. The terri- 
tory contended for is well-nigh half as extensive as the 
original thirteen colonies, and the contestants on the 
American side were the offspring of those who made 
the United States a separate government. 

It is not possible in a "Guide to the Alamo," dedi- 
cated primarily to a portrayal of its relation to the 
final contest, and to a description of the fortress and 
church for the benefit of the visitor, to deal in extenso 
with the greater subject of the various struggles for 
Texas independence, yet it seems appropriate that a 
few of the more important events which have a bear- 
ing upon the chief interest under consideration shall 
be woven into the warp and woof of the story. This 
will be cursorily done, that the reader may not be 
wearied with the tale, it being the desire, rather, that 
his interest shall be intensified as he follows the story 
up to the Alamo and the fated immolation of its heroes 
upon the altar of Texas liberty. 



Discovery of Texas. 

Texas was discovered by Robert Cavalier, a Sieur 
de la Salle, by which title he was known, in January, 
1685. La Salle had been to America before and had 
returned to France to get the support of his king in a 
voyage of discovery, his chief object being to locate 
the mouth of the Mississippi. He failed in this, bear- 
ing too far South in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing up 
on the Texas shore, on the Island of Matagorda. 

The Frenchman established a fort and colony, made 
several tours into the interior, bearing Northeastward 
generally, and claimed the country for the French 
crown. He engaged in numerous conflicts with vari- 
ous tribes of Indians, but eventually died at the hands 
of one of his own men. It is supposed he is buried, 
where killed on March 16, 1687, near the Arkansas- 
Louisiana-Texas line, on the Texas side. The exact 
spot is not known. Catherwood thinks it is on the 
bank of the Arkansas river near Little Rock. 

When La Salle set foot on Texas soil Spain owned 
Mexico. Its territory was supposed to extend as far 
east as the Mississippi, and when it became known 
to the Spanish crown that its neighbor on the North 
had been trampling upon his alleged rights in the far 
West the Mexican Viceroy was instructed to eject the 
offenders. 

The Viceroy sent out an expedition upon learning 
the location of La Salle's original base, Fort St. Louis, 
in the latter part of 1686. But the Frenchman with 
a part of his band was at the time in the unexplored 



country several hundred miles to the Northeast and 
knew nothing of what was going on, while the remain- 
ing colonists had succumbed to the Indians and dis- 
ease. The Spaniards, under Leon, found only the 
bones of the French intruders and their dilapidated 
fort, of the latter possession being taken in the name of 
Spain. 

But the Indians were vicious and locked equally 
unfavorably upon the intrusion of the French and 
Spanish, and eventually Leon was compelled to with- 
draw and return to Monclova. The tribes that gave 
both commanders trouble were the Comanches, the 
Caranchaus and the Lipans. The Cennis and Nasson- 
ites were friendly, a band of the former being the 
Tehas, for whom the country was named. For both 
La Salle and Leon the honor is claimed of giving the 
country its title. It probably belongs to the latter. 

The French had at this time come in complete pos- 
session of Louisiana, then the enormous area embraced 
in what we now know as the Louisiana Purchase. But 
Spain claimed everything from Mexico to the Missis- 
sippi, even holding that all territory bordering on the 
Gulf was hers. 

Thus the first contention over Texas was between 
the European monarchs, Louis the Fourteenth and 
King Qiarles. But the country was unexplored and 
unoccupied, other conquests commanded the attention 
of them both, and nothing was done about it for the 
time. 

Nevertheless, the Commandant of Louisiana kept 
guard over the interests of his Monarch, and in 1721 



decided to send out an expedition and hold the coun- 
try for France. He was advised by his government 
to occupy all territory as far west as the Bay of San 
Bernard, as Matagorda Bay was then known, by 
virtue of La Salle's discovery. But the Indians beat 
them back, their force being too small to contend suc- 
cessfully against the vast numbers of redskins roam- 
ing the prairies. 

Meanwhile the Spaniards were gradually approach- 
ing from the Mexican side, various missions having 
been located along the Rio Grande, the principal of 
which, St. John the Baptist, was laid out by de Leon 
upon his return from his initial search for Fort St. 
Louis. The Franciscan monks had conceived the 
great and glorious work of Christianizing the Indians 
and served as willing pioneers in the cause of their 
King. With small bodies of troops as a guard they 
wended their way into the interior, and thus it came 
that important civilizing missions were established 
along the watercourses from the Rio Grande to the 
Sabine. 

Energetic traders and venturesome pioneers came in 
from Louisiana and from Mexico, the gradual explor- 
ing of the new country taking place from both Eastern 
and Western borders, opposing sentiments and inter- 
ests prompting the march of progress in each instance. 
It is plain to be seen that eventually there must come 
a clash. 

Various spirited conflicts between Frenchmen and 
Spaniards occurred in Texas while France and Spain 
were at war at home, none of them amounting to more 



than sharp skirmishes, the honors being equal most of 
the time, the French gradually driving the Spanish 
back from the Sabine and Nacogdoches to San An- 
tonio, where the latter made so effective a stand that 
the French retreated to their base without attack, not 
again advancing so far into their interior but satisfy- 
ing themselves within their own recognized territory 
and fortifications at Nachitoches, in Louisiana proper. 

Spain was making her possession stronger year by 
year by introducing colonists from Mexico and the 
Canary Islands, these locating along the Rio Grande, 
in the rich valleys back from the coast, and along the 
Gulf shore, where ships could get in. The monks 
worked along the water courses to the foothills, civil- 
izing the Indian and pressing him into service, to- 
gether with the Mexicans and Canary Islanders, in the 
building of missions, churches, fortifications and 
schools. Thus Indianola, Lavaca, Matagorda, San 
Antonio, San Jacinto, Nacogdoches and other early 
settlements have their origin in this Christianizing 
march of the Franciscan fathers. 

In 1768 France settled all possible cause of con- 
tention between herself and Spain over territory West 
of the Mississippi by giving clear governmental title 
thereto, and the Castillian became the acknowledged 
owner of everything up to the big waters. 

But this action irritated the French and Indian col- 
onists in Louisiana and resulted in the organization 
of various raiding parties, which more than once suc- 
ceeded in destroying missions and temporarily driving 
the Spaniards back from the border. There were 

10 



also the usual frontier troubles between the Indians 
and both Frenchman and Spaniard, httle progress 
toward opening the country for actual settlement being 
made during the eighteenth century. 

Missions had been established at various important 
points, it is true, and here and there a good-sized trad- 
ing post had sprung up under the fostering care of 
the government and the priests. But of genuine set- 
tling there was little, practically none. 

Chronology of the Missions. 

The order in which the various missions were estab- 
lished, with dates, is given, in so far as possible : 

St. John the Baptist, on the Rio Grande, near where 
Laredo now stands, in 1690. 

The Alamo, on the Rio Grande in 1703, removed to 
San Antonio in 1718, and to the spot on which it now 
stands in 1722. 

Our Lady of the Guadalupe, at Victoria, in 1714. 

Mission Orquizacas, on the San Jacinto River, in 
1715. 

Mission Dolores, near San Augustine, in 1716. 

Our Lady of Nacogdoches, 171 5. 

Mission Adaes, East of the Sabine River, 1718. 

Mission Espiritu Santo, at Goliad, then La Bahia, 
1718. 

Mission San Jose, San Antonio, 1718. 

Mission de la Conception, 1731. 

Mission San Juan de Capistrano, 1731. 

Mission San Fernando, 1731. 

Mission San Franciscan de la Espada, 173 1. 

11 



It will be noticed the Spaniards and monks must 
have been exceedingly active for a few years in lo- 
cating tliese important posts for the holding of the 
country for Spain, and it will doubtless be noticed 
with equal celerity that no subsequent period of any- 
thing like equal activity is recorded. It is reasonable 
to assume that the work mapped out in the second 
decade of the century was quite enough to keep both 
the government and the church more than ordinarily 
busy for a long time thereafter. 

During the middle and latter parts of the eighteenth 
century the various missions were developed and large 
associated Indian schools were constructed. In the 
main these missions were of the same general char- 
acter, here and there successful effort at elaboration 
and imposing decorative effect being accomplished, as 
at the Mission San Jose, the Alamo, and a few others. 
Special architects among the Franciscans and from 
Spain put their best talents into the work, the effect 
being salutary upon the Indians and satisfying to the 
Spanish and Canary Island colonists, who found ele- 
gant church homes, splendid Catholic schools, and 
well-established trading posts at convenient distances 
from each other, away out in the wilds of the frontier, 
the whole giving a connected chain from the Western 
Louisiana line to Mexico. 

During this period there also occurred a great many 
exceedingly interesting historic incidents which cannot 
be elaborated in a brochure like this. They afford 
highly entertaining reading, however, and deserve 
greater attention than they have received, especially 

12 



among Texas readers. Many a beautiful romance is 
woven into the essential history of the state, while 
many an eventful occurrence, worthy the pen of an 
Irving or a Bancroft, has been allowed to pass un- 
recorded and unsung. 



AMERICA'S AWAKENING. 



Large droves of wild horses and cattle roamed the 
prairies of Texas. The latter were Spanish breeds, 
doubtless from stock originally imported from Spain 
and the Canaries into Mexico, from which the present 
long-horned cattle of Texas sprung, the former Indian 
and Mustang ponies, strengthened by the blood of the 
Arab imported in the early settling of Mexico. Droves 
of as many as from two thousand to five thousand 
horses dotted the beautiful plains and valleys of the 
New Philippines, as Texas and the Northern part of 
Mexico were known at that time in Spain, while cat- 
tle were equally numerous, roaming everywhere at 
will without herder, drover or restraint. 

The old San Antonio road had been blazed by St. 
Denis almost a century before history tells of the 
settling on the soil of Texas of an American foot. 
That roadway led from Nacogdoches to Monclova. 
Even as late as well toward the close of the nine- 
teenth century horsemen and wagoneers traveled the 
path St. Denis had ridden when first he visited Monc- 
lova in the interest of better trade relations between 
the French in Louisiana and the Spaniards in Mexico. 

13 



It extended beyond Nacogdoches far into Louisiana 
and the northeast; but at Nacogdoches was the real 
gateway to the New PhiHppines. The Mission of Our 
Lady, at that point was the first Spanish settlement 
encountered, the natural rendezvous of explorers, 
traders and adventurers- desiring to enter the for- 
bidden field. 

Just at the close of the eighteenth century, in 1797, 
the first white man set foot on Texas soil, so far as 
history gives record. The American army operating 
along the Mississippi and in Louisiana needed re- 
mounts and sent an emissary to the commander at 
Nacogdoches, Senor Commandant (Major) De Nava, 
to secure permission, if possible, to replenish its stock 
from the prairies a hundred miles to the West, the 
story of the droves of mustangs there to be found 
having been carried by French and Indian scouts to 
the commander of the American forces. 

Philip Nolan was the American emissary of the 
American army. It was with difficulty that he se- 
cured the desired permission, Spain's experiences with 
France making her wary of allowing any other gov- 
ernment to set its foot on Texas soil. But Nolan 
was persistent and diplomatic, and eventually got De 
Nava's consent, together with a body guard of Spanish 
troops from the little garrison, immediately setting 
out for a part of the territory as yet unexplored, even 
by the Spanish. But his guides knew their way, and 
they penetrated the country as far West as where 
Waco now stands, treating with various tribes of 
Indians as they went, the Wacos among them. 

14 



On his first journey for stock he secured above 
twelve hundred mustangs, without money or price, ex- 
cept the expenses of the original outfitting and the cost 
of the presents he carried as a peace offering to the 
redskins. 

Nolan made a second trip in 1800 for the same pur- 
pose, traversing almost the same ground, making his 
start from Natchez, on the Mississippi, armed with a 
permit from the Governor of Louisiana. This trip 
proved his undoing. The Spanish had become jealous 
of his ability to make friends with the Indians and 
coveted the splendid lots of horses he had been able to 
round up by their assistance, and De Nava had come 
to look upon him with suspicion, as a possible adven- 
turer who might have designs upon the country, per- 
haps an intention to form a new American colony on 
Spanish ground. He therefore issued orders for his 
arrest and sent a body of troops after him. Treacher- 
ous Indian spies, serving as guides for the Spaniards, 
learned of Nolan's whereabouts and he was attacked 
and killed after a gallant defense. His party num- 
bered but a score of men, several of whom died with 
him, the rest being confined for life, first in Texas 
and then in Mexican prisons. 

Nolan had withdrawn from the American army and 
was operating solely on his own behalf at the time 
his life was sacrificed to Spanish jealousy and fear. 

A Game of Shuttlecock. 

Meanwhile a game of shuttlecock was being played 
with the colonists of Louisiana. Finding them un- 

15 



willing and recalcitrant subjects Spain deeded their 
country and citizenship back to Bonaparte about the 
time of Nolan's death, and three years later diplo- 
matic negotiations and purchase made them and that 
country the property of the United States. 

This carried the Southwestern border of the Ameri- 
can republic down to the Spanish line, and America 
became an interested party in Spain's occupancy of the 
Great Southwest. 

The old boundary dispute had to be settled. 

The Spaniards claimed everything to the Missis- 
sippi. 

The United States believed her purchase embraced 
everything as far West as the Rio Grande, in those 
days confused on the maps with the Nueces. 

The Easternmost Spanish mission and settlement 
was still Nacogdoches. 

The French had turned over to the United States 
lier Westernmost trading post and fortification, Nach- 
itoches, on the opposite bank of the Sabine. 

The stream was the temporary boundary line. It 
alone separated the two forces ; its crossing by either 
meant war. 

For a time the situation was dangerously threaten- 
ing. 

The Mexican governor moved his headquarters 
from San Antonio, where he was in closer touch with 
his home government, to Nacogdoches, and the Ameri- 
can commander had gone to the front from New Or- 
leans. 

Each side was ready for the conflict if emergency 

16 



torced it. Each parried for time. Each strove to 
beat the other in diplomacy. 

The Spaniards won. 

They S'ecured a temporary delay by virtue of an 
agreement to the effect that a seven-mile strip of 
ground, extending West from the Sabine to the Ar- 
royo Hondo, should be neutral land until the matter 
could be settled at Washington and Madrid. 

The American forces had viewed the promised land, 
but had been forbidden to enter and were disappointed. 

Naturally, intrusion by Americans as individuals 
was dangerous, the Spaniards guarding their inter- 
ests too zealously for personal safety. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE INEVITABLE. 



Destiny has guided the course of the American 
people. Their watchword has been progress, their 
march ever forward. 

Without large dividing lines Texas could not al- 
ways remain Spanish domain. Nolan had his proto- 
type in a young American lieutenant, Augustus Ma- 
gee, who while the war of 1812 was attracting atten- 
tion decided upon a coup in Texas which he hoped 
might make it an independent republic, joining hands 
with a former Mexican revolutionist for the purpose of 
an invasion. 

They gathered together the first independent invad- 
ing party that ever attempted to strike Spain down 
in her acknowledged possession of the country, their 

17 



troop being composed of adventurers who had flocked 
to the neutral ground near Nacogdoches, dissatisfied 
Spanish soldiers, Mexicans of adventurous nature, 
Indian guides and half-breeds, together with a handful 
of discharged soldiers and reputable Americans out 
for the love of adventure and legitimate exploitation — • 
in all several hundred men making up a formidable 
invading army. 

The first conquest of this first invading troop from 
American lines, although it started from the neutral 
strip and was composed largely of others than Ameri- 
cans, was the capture of the fort and mission of Na- 
cogdoches, the Spaniards offering no resistance but 
fleeing Westward toward San Antonio upon the first 
appearance of the invaders. 

Gutierrez, the defeated Mexican revolutionist, was 
in command, Magee having gone to New Orleans, to 
try to raise money for the purposes of the war. To 
the American, however, belongs the credit, or the 
blame, whichever the historian and the reader may 
allot, of the original effort at the repubHcanizing of 
Texas. 

Magee soon returned from New Orleans, and with 
recruits joined forces with Gutierrez on the Trinity, 
the combined army of republican stragglers and ad- 
venturers following the St. Denis road, capturing 
Goliad and taking the Spanish garrison into their 
ranks, strengthening their armament by the addition 
of the cannon which La Salle had brought from 
France a century and a half before. He died at Goliad 
of consumption, but not until his force had engaged 

18 



in serious conflicts with various wings of the Mexican 
armies sent out to destroy them. 

An American named Kemper succeeded Magee in 
his relation to the command, which was able to with- 
stand all the onslaughts of the Spaniards, who finally 
gave up their siege and attacks upon the fortified mis- 
sion and retreated to the chief Spanish headquarters 
at San Antonio. 

The First Real Battle. 

Gutierrez and Kemper followed in hot pursuit and a 
bloody and disastrous battle was fought only nine 
miles from this city, on the Rosillo, the Spanish 
armies, which greatly outnumbered the Republicans, 
suffering an ignominous- and overwhelming defeat. 
This desperate battle meant a great deal for the Re- 
publican forces. If defeated their cause was doomed. 
If victorious there was a chance of making of the 
mighty empire of prairie and forest, of hill and valley, 
of upland and lowland, of Indians and cattle and mus- 
tangs, a new republic where the pioneer American 
might build for himself a home and castle. 

The battle of Rosillo Creek settled the fate of San 
Antonio. The city surrendered in advance of the ar- 
rival of the Americans, but seventeen Spaniards re- 
maining to guard the Church and Fortress of the 
Alamo when the invading army marched into the city 
with their banners flying. 

In connection with the battle of Rosillo an unfor- 
tunate slaughter of surrendered and captured officers 
occurred under the vengeful order of Gutierrez. The 
troops who had surrendered were freed, the officers 

19 



paroled. But the following day the latter were bru- 
tally put to death, as a safeguard against possible fu- 
ture danger from their influence over their men. This 
cruelty doubtless had its effect in influencing the de- 
termination of the Americans in the Alamo, in their 
fateful defense against the armies of Santa Anna, to 
withstand to the last. 

The brutality was due to Mexican orders, not those 
of an American commander. But all were republi- 
cans, and republicanism was held to blame. 

Though defeated so ingloriously the Spaniards were 
not dismayed and under command of Elisondo, San 
Antonio was attacked on June 4th of the same year, 
1 813, by a well-organized and equipped army from 
Mexico. 

The republican forces were well-intrenched and be- 
hind their fortifications, however, and successfully 
withstood the onslaught, defeating the Spaniards at a 
loss of above a thousand men. For a time this satis- 
fied the Mexican soldiery that the republicans were a 
worthy foe and they held the city undisturbed. 

But it was only for a time. 

Two months later, on the 1 8th of August, the tide 
was reversed. 

Kemper had returned to Nacogdoches after the 
battle of Rosillo, determined not to go back while 
Gutierrez was in command, the horrible massacre of 
Governors Salcedo, Herrera and Cordero, with sur- 
rendered Mexican officers at Rosillo, meeting with 
his violent protest and unqualified condemnation. 
Several of the best American officers resigned and re- 

20 



turned with him, and later Gutierrez handed the com- 
mand over to General Toledo and retraced his steps to 
Nacogdoches, with the intention of recruiting more 
troops and gathering a large fund for the pursuit of 
the war. 

But Toledo made a fatal mistake. General Arre- 
dondo had come over from Mexico to succeed Eli- 
sondo, and had satisfied himself with intrenching his 
forces on the Medina, fourteen miles West of the 
city, from which point he intended keeping up a 
series of harassing operations. 

Instead of resting secure behind his fortifications 
and the Mission walls of the Alamo Toledo decided 
to go out and force the fighting. 

A terrible reverse was the result, practical annihila- 
tion of the Republican army following a fruitless at- 
tack upon the intrenched Mexicans. Less than a 
hundred of the nine hundred troops composing the 
attacking force escaped, and the massacre of the cap- 
tured officers at Rosillo was avenged by the admin- 
istration of a similar fate to the captured at Me- 
dina. 

The war had degenerated into a brutal hand-to-hand 
conflict, without quarter, and with certain death fol- 
lowing surrender. 

Ninety-three escaped Americans, this including such 
Mexicans, half-breed French and Indian admixtures 
as were classed as Americans for republican purposes, 
beat their way back to Nacogdoches, and the first war 
for Texas independence was at an inglorious end. 



21 



The Second Attempt at Invasion. 

The ill-fating of the Magee-Gutierrez-Toledo army 
checked the spirit of republicanism for the time, but 
it would not stay down. Five years after the battle 
of the Medina a Tennesseean who had served with 
General Jackson at New Orleans, Dr. James Long, 
who had become imbued with the martial spirit and as- 
pired to immortalize himself by making Texas free 
and establishing a miniature American republic there- 
upon, organized an army of invasion of three hundred 
adventuresome spirits at Natchez and marched to Na- 
cogdoches, that outpost having become so accustomed 
to the changes of war that it surrendered peacefully 
upon the approach of the intruding force. 

General Long actually founded a "Republic of 
Texas" at Nacogdoches at that time, though the suc- 
cessful republic eventually annexed to the United 
States was the product of a later effort. Yet Long 
organized a government, established a legislature, 
formulated and set up revenue and immigration laws, 
and otherwise tried to accompHsh that which failed 
of success until a quarter of a century later. 

Long's government was overthrown by the Span- 
iards while he was absent trying to induce a French- 
man, Lafitte, successfully installed on the Island of 
Galveston, to join him in his struggle against the Mex- 
icans, and again the attempt to make a republic of 
Texas had failed. 

Lafitte was a piratical spirit from New Orleans who 
had found the sandy island upon which Galveston is 

22 



now located to be a suitable place from which to roam 
the sea. He had organized a considerable colony, al- 
most a thousand, all told, of French and Indians, to 
whom his word was law, and had accumulated large 
wealth from privateering among the Spanish vessels 
which sailed the Gulf. 

Lafitte had aspirations of his own in regard to a 
republic in Texas, but declined to join Long in his 
movement in that direction, having the foresight to 
understand that a considerable and effective fighting 
force would be required to overthrow the Spanish 
governor. 

All of Mexico was immediately behind the latter, 
with Spain across the seas to sustain the Mexican 
colonists in the defense of the rich frontier. 

Lafitte was wise. Both the Magee and Long ex- 
peditions failed for lack of numbers and reinforce- 
ments. Each played a part toward the eventual liber- 
ation of Texas from the Mexican yoke, but both were 
premature. 

Long made a second effort in 182 1, getting as far 
West as Goliad, then La Bahia, with but fifty-two men, 
who were subsequently easily overpowered by a frag- 
mentary Mexican force, the leader being sent to Mex- 
ico City as a prisoner, where, after eight months' con- 
finement, he was killed by a Mexican soldier imme- 
diately after being pardoned, a practice quite the rule 
in those early days. 



23 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 



The beginning of the end of Spanish domination 
dates from the granting to Moses Austin of permission 
to introduce colonists in Texas, in 1820. 

Austin was a Missourian of enterprise and pioneer- 
ing procHvities, who succeeded only after a great deal 
of effort in procuring a severely restrictive permit to 
occupy a selected section with his colonists. The lat- 
ter would have to come from Louisiana, at that time 
a very much larger territory than now\ They had to 
be of good character, swear allegiance to Spain, and 
belong to the Roman faith. They were to be free from 
taxation for a period of six years, and to each able- 
bodied man 640 acres were to be allotted, to each mar- 
ried woman 320, to each child 140, and to each master 
80 acres for each slave he owned. 

Austin died before he could perfect the contract, but 
his son, Stephen F. Austin, then twenty-eight years 
old, took up the work and later introduced the colony 
in the winter of 1821. 

Hardly had the newcomers started to set themselves 
up on farms and clearings before Mexico revolted 
against Spanish domination and a war was on in the 
Mexican peninsula. The Spanish governor at San 
Antonio could not fulfill all the terms of the contract, 
this necessitating a trip to the City of Mexico by the 
younger Austin for the purpose of securing his rights 
and learning what might be the probabilities for the 
future of his people. Their shipload of supplies had 
either been captured by pirates or lost in a Gulf storm, 

24 



and the Indians harassed them continually. Yet they 
held on, and succeeded in planting the tree of liberty 
from which grew later the young republic. 

Their leader's journey was a long and tedious one, 
fraught with many dangers and delays, and not until 
the summer of 1823 was he able to get back from 
the Mexican capital, with such assurances of a safe- 
guarding of interests as- the precarious government 
was able to give. The section occupied by the col- 
onists extended from the Brazos to the Colorado, in 
which the towns of Austin, Bastrop, Gonzales and 
Victoria had been plotted, as plotting went in those 
early days. 

Two years later Stephen Austin got permission 
to bring in five hundred more families, while other 
colonists had been given smaller grants and the set- 
tling of Texas had been fairly begun. 

To Hayden Edwards, a Kentuckian, a grant had 
been given near Nacogdoches which set up trouble. 
There was constant dispute between the colonists and 
the Mexicans as to the ownership of ground, water 
rights, timber, etcetera, increasing friction resulting. 
Finally, during the absence of Edwards for another 
colony, the Mexican governor annulled his grant and 
ordered the leaders out of the country. They made a 
feeble effort at resistance, organizing themselves into 
an army called "Fredonians," but being unable to in- 
cite the Indians and other colonists to war gave up the 
struggle and returned to Louisiana. 

25 



Callings of the Mexican Yoke. 

Spain had been overthrown in Mexico and that 
country had become an independent government. 
Texas had previously been a separate department, or 
province, with San Antonio as its headquarters, all 
business between the colonists and the government be- 
ing transacted at that point. 

In 1824, however, Texas was added to Coahuila, 
whose capital was Saltillo, only a department com- 
mander being left at San Antonio, and it thus became 
necessary for the colonists and government to deal at 
long range, to the great inconvenience and oftentimes 
great loss of the former. 

This error of the new Mexican government was a 
fatal one. 

But President Bustamente and his advisers had 
come to look with suspicion and fear upon the energy 
and success of the Americans, who were making a 
formidable population, and who had the courage to 
ask for such reliefs as they considered themselves en- 
titled to. 

The Americans were a sturdy lot of men, larger in 
stature than the Mexicans, well-educated, accustomed 
to a republican life at home, they knew what justice 
and injustice were, and as straightforward, outspoken, 
courageous citizens had little patience with the dilatori- 
ness, lack of decision, and disposition to treachery 
which characterized the conduct of many of the Mex- 
ican officials. 

Friction increased under the new regime. The 

26 



Americans became restless, and with radical changes 
in the attitude of the government toward them, the 
former gradually sealed its fate. 

Among especially irritating edicts from Mexico 
there came the radical change of the prohibition of the 
further introduction of slaves. Most of the colonists 
were from slave-holding sections of the United States 
and resented this strenuously. 

Then orders were issued to the Mexican constabu- 
lary to limit the number of firearms in a family to one, 
usually a fowling piece. The Indians were still very 
troublesome in sections, and frontier colonists would 
not allow themselves to be disarmed. 

An extravagant system of taxation was inaugurated 
and special Mexican collectors and assessors were ap- 
pointed who worked unusual and irritating hardships 
upon the people. 

^ The water right problem, along streams and irriga- 
tion ditches, proved an especially annoying one. Mex- 
ican inspectors rode the streams and canals during dry 
seasons, guarding sluiceways and water gates, allot- 
ting plenty of water to Mexican farmers and depriving 
Americans of their just share. 

Appeals to the courts were in vain. The judiciary 
were all Mexicans, chiefly militar>' officers, the rule 
practically that of martial law. 

The government was committing its own suicide. 

Meanwhile, an insurrection was on in Mexico. Bus- 

tamente had proved himself an unwise and tyrannical 

ruler and Santa Anna, of the Mexican Army, had 

organized a military resistance. The colonists helped 



27 



DE COIiONIZACION y^^^ 

Seccion ^ , 











/j:*«f:^«?<»-*;^^^.-/i^;^^-^j^;l^t^^ 

















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elect him president, and hopeful of better treatment 
at his hands a convention was held at San Felipe in 
the spring of 1833 and separation from Coahuila and 
a return to former conditions were asked for. Austin 
was sent to Mexico with the convention's memorial, 
but met with antagonism and his mission failed, and 
he started back to Texas, after having written advising 
the colonists to take steps toward the organization of a 
separate republic. 

His letter was intercepted, and after getting as near 
home as Saltillo he was arrested, taken back to the 
capital, and imprisoned for almost two years. 

Santa Anna proved to be as unwise an official as 
Bustamente, in so far as the colonists were concerned. 
He ordered them all disarmed, sending a body of troops 
to force acquiesence, and imposed taxes and burdens 
which the Americans would not bear. 

Various conferences and conventions were held, at 
various times and places, each tending to further ce- 
ment the Americans and decide them upon a revolu- 
tion unless relief was given, and as the Mexicans in- 
creased their garrisons, sending new troops in from 
Mexico, a call was finally issued for a Consultation, to 
be held at San Felipe, on the i6th of October, 1835, » 
at which the colonists should agree upon some course 
of action which should be definite and effective. 

THE CONFLICT BEGINS. 



The initial conflict for independence occurred at 
Gonzales on October ist. The town had a cannon 

30 



which had been given it by the government four 
years previously as a defense against the Indians. 
Under a radical and complete disarming act a Mexi- 
can colonel was sent with a detachment to get this gun. 
The citizens declined to surrender it and the next 
morning turned it upon the enemy, who beat a retreat 
with a loss of several men. 

The second conflict was at Goliad, where a band of 
Texans numbering fifty or sixty men, mostly plant- 
ers, marched upon that post, under command of Col. 
Ben Milam, capturing the garrison, including several 
hundred stands of arms, which the colonists needed 
badly, a number of cannon and a good supply of am- 
munition and military stores. The movement was 
spreading. The colonists were determined to have 
justice and independence if they had to fight for it. 

The San Felipe Consultation had no need to settle 
the question. The Gonzales and Goliad incidents had 
already decided it. The people were notified of those 
occurrences and were asked to cast their votes by the 
bark of the rifle. They came from farm and planta- 
tion, from ranch and pasture, from the desk and the 
counter, from the rostrum and the pulpit. A spirit of 
absolute independence prevailed throughout all the set- 
tlements, and a considerable army gathered at Gon- 
zales before the Consultation at San Felipe had ended. 
Austin was elected Commander-in-Chief, and war 
was on. 

Meanwhile, the Mexicans were not idle. Santa Anna 
had sent his brother-in-law. General Cos, one of the 
best commanders of the Mexican army, to take charge 

31 



at San Antonio. Reinforcements to the garrison had 
arrived, the intrenchments were strengthened, and the 
Mexicans made preparations to put down the insur- 
rection in its incipiency, as the Spaniards had done so 
many times before, always with Mexican troops. 

The American Forces Move West. 

Austin reahzed that it was important to have a base 
of supplies as far to the West as possible. He there- 
fore early took up the Westward march, his force 
being added to as he went, his council consisting of 
Houston, Bowie, Travis, Fannin, Crockett, Milam, 
Burleson and Deaf Smith, as courageous a council 
as ever engaged in war, pioneers of the best and brav- 
est t3'pe, men without fear, each a power in himself. 

Leaving Gonzales with three hundred and fifty men, 
not a large army but a determined one, by the time he 
got to the JNIission de la Espada (the Mission of the 
Sword), known as the Fourth Mission at San Antonio 
to-day, the number had increased to above six hundred, 
well-armed, confident and determined to set Texas 
free. 

From la Espada, nine miles south of the city, Austin 
sent couriers to San Antonio with a demand upon 
General Cos that he surrender. The couriers were ac- 
corded scant courtesy and received a negative answer. 
The bridges had been burned, the opposing command- 
ers had thrown down the gauntlet. 

It took Austin and his council but a few minutes to 
decide what to do, and the next morning, October 
27th, Colonels Fannin and Bowie were- sent with a 

32 



detachment of less than a hundred men to take up their 
station at the first mission, that of the Immaculate 
Concepcion, two miles south of the Alamo, which was 
the Mexican fortress and headquarters. From that 
point they threw out their lines, preparing to harass 
the enemy while the main force was being further aug- 
mented by recruits from the Eastern colonists, to 
whom word about the uprising had been sent. 

Initial Skirmish Before San Antonio. 

At the first mission the first San Antonio skirmish 
occurred. The Mexicans were the aggressors. Gen- 
eral Cos sent out a force to drive Fannin and Bowie 
back, attacking them at daybreak on the 28th. 

The attacking party consisted of a troop of cavalry 
and a battalion of artillery, with a six-pounder, which 
opened early in action upon the Americans, under 
cover of its fire the cavalry charging the lines of the 
invaders w^ith the intention of riding them down and 
breaking their battalion into fragments. But every 
American was a deadly shot with the rifle and the 
Mexicans could not stand the fire. After a fierce ad- 
vance they were compelled to retreat, and before they 
could re-form under the cover of their gun the in- 
vaders had charged upon the artillery and captured the 
cannon in a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, in which 
they inflicted severe loss upon the Mexicans and lost 
their first hero in the War for Independence, the only 
loss sustained in the skirmish. 

The booming of the cannon told Austin that the 
action was on and reinforcements were hurried to the 

35 



mission. They were not needed that day, so well had 
Fannin and Bowie done their work ; but the main army 
was brought forward from la Espada and the invest- 
ment of San Antonio was begun. 

Uneventful skirmishes before the city occurred dur- 
ing the next few days and well into November, and 
to the colonists' men had been added three companies 
of troops from New Orleans and Mississippi. Gen- 
eral Edward Burleson, who had had extensive experi- 
ence as an Indian fighter, succeeded to the command, 
Austin having resigned to go to Washington as special 
commissioner of the Insurgents, in the hope of secur- 
ing government recognition as combatants and the 
good offices of the great republic for a satisfactory 
cession of Texas by Mexico. 

Burleson kept his forces closely in hand, waiting for 
reinforcements, before attacking the Alamo, but the 
colonists were impatient for action and the army grew 
dangerously restless. 

The Siege of Bexar. 

Finally, upon having definite word from the enemy's 
headquarters of his weakness. Col. Milam led a volun- 
teer troop of three hundred, for several days a hot skir- 
mish being kept up on the West side of the river, from 
Soledad street to the present site of the Santa Rosa 
Hospital and City Market House, Milam being killed 
in the court of the old Veramendi House, still standing 
on Soledad, between Commerce and Houston, at the 
head of Veramendi street. 

Col. Johnson assumed command when. Milam fell, 

36 




COL. BEN. MILAM, 
Killed at the "Siege of Bexai'" December 6, 1S35. 



and the straggling fighting was continued for several 
days, until, on the 9th of December, the Alamo sur- 
rendered and for the first time in history the fortress 
and San Antonio came into complete possession of the 
American colonists. 

General Burleson had not participated in the five 
days' fighting, the original three hundred men who 
had volunteered to go with Milam and Johnson having 
won the victory. He finally secured the surrender of 
Cos, but not until the courageous little band had fought 
their way in hand-to-hand struggles into all the strong- 
holds of the town except the Alamo. 

The flag of the republic had been raised over the 
fortress, but unfortunately not to stayc 



LEADING UP TO THE ALAMO. 



Following the gallant capture of San Antonio and 
the occupation of the Alamo by the colonists various 
interesting occurrences took place, too many, by far, 
to be enumerated here, bearing upon the subsequent 
liberation of Texas from the galling yoke of Mexican 
rule. 

The Convention of Consultation elected a provisional 
government but decided not to withdraw from Mexico 
and set up a republic, contenting itself with asking 
home rule and the annulment of restrictive and unjust 
laws. This failed to satisfy the more radical of the 
patriots and from time to time sporadic outbursts by 
enthusiastic bands of republicans kept the agitation 

39 



between the colonists and the Mexican troops at its 
height. 

Henry Smith was elected provisional governor and 
to General Sam Houston was assigned the command- 
ership-in-chief of the armies to be raised. Austin, 
Archer and Wharton were sent to Washington as a 
board of commissioners for Texas, it being thought 
wise by the consultation to make every effort to se- 
cure needed relief and reforms through diplomacy if 
possible, the resort to arms to follow only as a last 
recourse, now that the colonists had shown their abil- 
ity to overthrow military rule if required and their 
subsequent willingness to accept a continuation of re- 
lations with Mexico under a home government and 
just administration. 

Nothing came of the efforts toward peace. The 
uprising had become too general. The tastes of vic- 
tory which had savored the mouths of the colonists 
but whetted them for complete independence. On the 
other hand, the Mexican army felt the disgrace of 
the defeats of Goliad and San Antonio and were bent 
upon revenge. Large numbers of trained soldiers 
were sent to increase their forces, and Santa Anna, 
who had succeeded in his ambitious desire to become 
Dictator of Mexico, was determined to retain Texas 
at all cost, and gave such orders for its holding to 
Generals Cos and Urrea, commanders of the Mexican 
forces, that they were impelled to their utmost to re- 
gain the lost prestige of the army and recapture San 
Antonio. 

Urrea had succeeded during the period of diplo- 

40 



matic effort in defeating a column of the more en- 
thusiastic but misguided colonists, who tried to do too 
much with inadequate numbers and equipment, and 
was eager for further conflict. 

General Cos had been paroled by Burleson when he 
surrendered the Alamo and San Antonio, and by 
honor was bound not to return to the struggle. But 
Santa Anna was unyielding, and compelled his 
brother-in-law to take the field in spite of his parole. 
It is not on record that Cos' protests were very pro- 
nounced, a parole not meaning much to the army of 
the frontier in those stirring days. 

The Mexicans made elaborate preparation for their 
next invasion, and to make sure of success, and to as 
firmly establish his dictatorship in Texas as he had 
succeeded in doing in the provinces of the republic, 
Santa Anna took command of the combined armies 
himself, «;ending Urrea to Matamoras, Refugio and 
Goliad, Cos and General Filisola accompanying the 
commander to San Antonio, all the time the post, mis- 
sion and city of chief importance throughout the 
struggles for liberty. 

Dissension Among the Americans. 

After the surrender of Cos to Burleson, succeeding 
the five days* fight in the town, then mostly located 
West of the river, including Main Plaza and Soledad 
and Acequia streets, the American forces had scat- 
tered, returning to their homes and farms, the leaders 
going to the Convention of Consultation, at San Fe- 
lipe, and the stragglers scattering over the country, 

41 



occupying various small posts and trading sites, no 
central body of troops remaining in organization to 
sustain the limited garrison remaining in charge of 
the Alamo. 

Of these there were but a hundred and forty-five 
men, under the command of Colonel Wm. -Travis, one 
of the heroes of Gonzales and Goliad, one of the most 
courageous of the colonists and a wise and able leader. 
David Crockett and James Bowie were with him, both 
known to fame as Indian fighters of note and as pio- 
neers whose courage was undoubted. 

It is unfortunate that in this critical period the 
Texans were divided. President Smith failed to se- 
cure the sustaining support of his cabinet and leading 
advisers. Houston leaned toward Smith's views and 
thus lost control of the army. A council guided its 
movements, and unfortunately distributed it over the 
country, no garrison having an adequate fighting force. 
The Alamo was the best manned of them all. 

Urrea had defeated and brutally massacred Col. 
Grant's battalion at Bahia. Indecision and lack of 
concentration characterized the conduct of the presi- 
dent and council. Houston wanted to bring the colo- 
nist forces together into one command and make 
an effective stand wherever the enemy might strike. 
But having taken up the president's cause, which was 
not the popular one, his wishes were overridden and 
segregation followed. 

And such was the unfortunate state of affairs when 
Santa Anna took command on the Rio Grande and set 
out for San Antonio to recapture the Alamo and put 
down the insurrection forever. 

42 



THE MISSION OF THE ALAMO. 



No recital of the fall of the Alamo, and the massa- 
cre of the courageous band of colonists who so gal- 
lantly defended it that their bravery had immortalized 
them in Texas history, would be sufficiently explana- 
tory to give to the reader the best understanding of the 
struggle that failed to give a history of the Alamo 
itself. 

This, in fact, is the motive which has prompted 
this brochure — to portray to the visitor the founding, 
building and Hfe of the Alamo; to depict its strength 
as a fortress- ; its influence as a church ; its relation to 
the territory as a central station for the army, the 
Franciscans and the frontiersmen of Texas ; and to por- 
tray the memorable struggle that took place within 
its massive walls, and about its environs, as Texan and 
Mexican contended and fought and died for its pos- 
session, in that memorable battle that made the beauti- 
ful river at its feet run red with the blood of the mar- 
tyrs within its walls and of the foe that attacked them 
from without. 

That which has preceded is preliminary to that 
which follows. The history and tale of the Alamo 
cannot but arouse the patrotism of every Texan, and 
hold with interestedness every visitor who views its 
sacred precincts, 

Senor Don Domingo Ramon is supposed to have 
located the first of the posts of San Antonio near the 
beautiful springs of the San Pedro in 171 5, to which 
was given the name of Fort San Antonio de Velaro. 

43 



This was in the nature of a garrison together with a 
little church, the post remaining there three years, 
when the Franciscan monks began the erection of a 
mission in association therewith. 

Three times the site of this was changed. First, it 
was moved to the present Military Plaza, then back to 
the San Pedro again, and finally, in 1722, or a hun- 
dred and eighty years ago, it was located permanently 
on its present site, on the Eastern side of the San 
Antonio river. 

The city takes its name from that of the original 
post. The mission took its title after it became a parish 
from the beautiful trees along the bank of the river and 
acequia, the word being the Spanish for the tree known 
to America as the "cottonwood." 

As will be seen by a glance, either at the building by 
the visitor or at the frontispiece by the reader, the 
Mission or Church of the Alamo was a most sub- 
stantially and somewhat artistically built structure. 
All these old missions were built upon the Cesseran 
plan, with extremely heavy walls and partitions be- 
tween rooms, parapetted cornices, graveled azoteas 
for roofs, the miain building of a mission always com- 
bining the features of a church and a fortress. 

The Church of the Alamo was but the central build- 
ing of the mission. A visit to the Mission de la Con- 
sepcion or the Mission San Jose at the present time 
will give an idea of the surrounding structures, at both 
those missions parts of the old embattlement walls, and 
some of the smaller buildings which were parts of 

44 




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Q. ROOr^. 

R. DOORS or tvlOM ASTEP.V 

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them, still remaining intact. Those of the Alamo have, 
unfortunately, been completely destroyed or removed. 

The "Plan of the Alamo," which accompanies, will 
give a fair idea of the extent of the enclosure and the 
areas of the different parts thereof. The church was 
the only finished or architectural part of the mission. 
The monastery, which stood immediately in the left 
o: the front entrance, was a large stone structure, 
covering quite an extent of ground, i86 feet in length 
and narrow, its greatest width being but eighteen feet. 
It ran North in its long dimension, extending out to 
the border line of what is now the city's Houston 
Street. Within a quarter of a century it has been 
modernized and is owned and used by a business firm 
as a wholesale merchandise house. 

In front of the monastery and church were various 
domestic buildings, among them a large granary, 
traces of which are to be seen in the plan, in which 
the defenders of the Alamo stored their corn and pro- 
visions in times of seige. 

All the buildings of the mission were enclosed in 
heavy stone walls with supporting arches and parapets, 
as in the time of Caesar. Many of the smaller build- 
ings along these walls remained in existence until 
thirty or forty years ago. Quite a row of them stood 
where the Opera House and business houses lining the 
West side of the Alamo Plaza now stand as late as the 
beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 
It is unfortunate from the historical viewpoint that all 
of them were not preserved intact. 

Immediately surrounding the mission were large 

47 



cultivated gardens and small fields, wherein the In- 
dians were taught their first lessons in agriculture and 
methods of civilization, these supplying the inhabi- 
tants of the missions and the garrisons of the posts 
with vegetables and fruits, and their horses with grain. 
History tells us that these garden spots were a delight 
to the eye, so well-kept and luxuriantly green were they 
from irrigation by ditches constructed by the Mexi- 
cans, Canary Islanders and Indians, under the guid- 
ance of the monks and the protection of the garrisons. 
One of the acequias ran directly behind the church of 
the Alamo to supply it with water in time of war. 
Traces of it remain a monument to the industry of the 
padres of two hundred years ago. 

Secularization of the Mission. 

Toward the close of the eighteenth century Spain re- 
called the monks and the mission of the Alamo, along 
with others which had been established by the Francis- 
cans, which was secularized by Senor Don Pedro de 
Nava, at that time Spanish Governor of Texas, and its 
control was turned over from the monastic order to the 
State clergy as a parish, there having been irritations 
and friction between the monks and the military at 
various times during their ownership by the Francis- 
cans. The Spaniards saw the greater need of military 
posts than of churches and schools and prepared for 
defense, the missions thus becoming fortresses first, 
churches afterward. 

It was in this stronghold of Franciscan friarship 
construction that General Cos was quartered when 

48 



Milam and Johnson won the first battles of San An- 
tonio, and it was also in it that Travis, Bowie and 
Crockett were quartered when Santa Anna set out 
from Mexico to retrieve the ground his armies had 
lost in Texas. 

^ yf if 

Col. Travis was in command of the regulars by vir- 
tue of orders from Houston and the council. The com- 
mander-in-chief had issued a memorable order, which 
had a ring of independence about it not to be mistaken, 
on the 8th of October, 1835, in which he spoke to the 
people as follows: 

'The time has arrived when the revolutions in the 
interior of Mexico have resulted in the creation of a 
Dictator and Texas is compelled to assume an attitude 
defensive of her rights and the lives and property of 
her citizens. War is our only alternative. War in 
the defense of right/ must be our motto. The morning 
of glory has dawned upon us. The work of liberty has 
begun. Our acts are to become a part of the history 
of mankind. Patriot milHons will sympathize with' 
our struggles, while nations will admire our achieve- 
ments. Rally around the standard of the Constitution, 
entrench your rights with manly resolutions, and de- 
fend them with heroic firmness. Let your valor pro- 
claim to the world that Liberty is your birthright. We 
cannot be conquered by all the arts of anarchy and 
despotism combined. In Heaven and valorous hearts 
we repose our confidence." 

Col. Bowie, as brave and gallant as Travis, was in 
command of the volunteers who remained in San 

49 



Antonio after the "Siege of Bexar," as the five days' 
fight led by Milam and Johnson had been styled, the 
little force of a hundred and forty-five being made up 
about equally of Bowie's and Travis' men. It was 
but a handful against the five thousand Mexican 
troops who were approaching under command of the 
Dictator and his staff. Could they but have known 
the forces of the Mexicans, retreat would have been 
honorable and their sacrifice need not have occurred. 



THE SIEGE OF THE ALAMO. 



The Mexican army camped on the Medina, where 
Arredondo had so signally defeated Toledo, and sent 
out advance guards to learn where the Americans 
might be found, to ascertain their number and other- 
wise gain information in regard to their situations. 
The garrison was not well outposted, and finding the 
coast comparatively clear the Mexicans moved for- 
ward to the Alazan, three miles West of the town. 

Garrison life had become tiresome and the Ameri- 
cans had given themselves over to a careless indulgence 
and a life of festivity. Pickets had grown careless. 
The men were weary of waiting, and their existence 
was a lazy one. 

Without means of communication with the frontier 
they were not prepared for the enemy. Reinforce- 
ments had been expected, preliminary to a march to 
the West, and the little troop had been alternately im- 
patient and indifferent about their arrival^ so long had 

SO 



it been delayed and so often had they been disap- 
pointed. The contentions among the leaders and coun- 
cil had postponed the organization of an army, and the 
infection of unrest and indifference to strict miHtary 
rule had permeated the garrison of the Alamo. 

Thus it happened that the Mexican army drew so 
near unannounced and unknown. They chose the 
night for their coming, to make their march unseen 
more sure, and by dawn on the 23rd of February were 
discovered swarming the prairies West of the San 
Pedro and filing down the banks of the more distant 
Alazan. 

The alarm was given from the mission on Main 
Plaza by a sentinel stationed on the tower, and created 
the greatest consternation in the sleeping little city. 
Travis and Bowie could hardly believe it, so strong 
had been their dependence upon their government and 
the council. Trusty couriers, Dr. Sutherland, surgeon 
to the band, and a volunteer named Smith, were dis- 
patched to learn the truth or falsity of the alarm and 
were not long in discovering, from Desiderio Hill, just 
West of the San Pedro, that an army before which the 
garrison would be powerless was already drawn up 
in battle array. With the coming of that dawn came 
the fate of the American battalion. They could not 
retreat in honor, nor were they horsed for a flight. 
There was nothing left but to do the best they could, 
behind the sturdy walls of the fortress, into which they 
were quickly filed. 

Today we see around the Alamo a busy city. Then 
there was but here and there a little adobe on that side 

51 



of the river, the town having been built on the West 
banks, the mission on the opposite side. Where Travis 
Park now is was prairie, and all along the river on the 
Eastern side grazed little bunches of cattle. Men had 
scurried here and there, gathering as many of these 
together as was possible in the time at command, and 
as Santa Anna invaded the city from the West the 
American forces drove their herd into the enclosure 
and closed the heavy gates of the Alamo behind them 
for the last time. 

The fiat had gone forth. During all the fierce skir- 
mishes between the opposing forces, with the single 
exception of the capture of San Antonio by the col- 
onists, massacre had followed surrender. It was a 
war of no quarter, a struggle to the death. Travis 
and Bowie — and the brave little band with them — 
knew when they drew the gates that it was the end, 
unless reinforcements from the East should come very 
soon. Within the Alamo the supplies of the fortress 
were but a few bushels of corn and the beeves which 
had been run in that morning. For the latter there 
was no feed beyond enough for a day or two, and 
without means of communication with the seat of gov- 
ernment the abandonment of the garrison must have 
been resignedly complete. 

Every American but one had entered the fort. Dr. 
Sutherland had been dispatched upon the fleetest horse 
at command for reinforcements. San Felipe was a 
long distance away. Only a straggling settler here 
and there lived West of the Brazos. The frontiers- 
men had suffered more severely at Gojlad and the 

52 



Medina than those from the colonies further to the 
East. The courier had a long way to go before he 
could reach a settled section. His mission was hope- 
less, and though he rode the death ride fearlessly the 
garrison lived not to learn the result of his effort. 

Message of Defiance and Death. 

Hardly had the gates been closed and barricaded 
before messengers from Santa Anna arrived demand- 
ing surrender. Travis had a cannon on the roof and 
answered the demand by a shot. The Mexican had 
taken possession of the Mission San Fernando, and 
upon its tower, from which the sentinel had given the 
first warning of his approach, he ran up a blood-red 
flag. The heroes of the Alamo saw it and knew what 
it meant. The messenger of their death waved be- 
fore them in the gentle breezes of the Southern morn. 

The river lay between, and ran more water than 
now. An army could not be forded, and thus delay 
occurred. The answer which Travis had sent him 
told Santa Anna that he had a struggle ahead, so his 
engineers were put to work constructing a bridge, far 
enough down the river to be beyond the reach of the 
American guns. 

To get timber for the bridge a detachment of men 
was sent to attack the walls of the mission from the 
rear, but the galling fire of the riflemen within less 
than an hour sent thirty of them to their death and 
they were withdrawn, a cordon being swung to the 
North and East, on what is now known as Dignowity 

53 



Hill, to prevent the possible retirement of the garrison 
in that direction. 

The state of siege necessitated concert of action 
within the Alamo. Travis was formally placed in 
command, with Bowie as second officer in case of his 
death. Crockett, who had come from Tennessee after 
his defeat for re-election to the American Congress, 
upon his arrival had been tendered the command by 
Travis, but he declined the honor and responsibility. 
'T am among you to live or to die; I have come to 
your country to identify myself with your interests, 
and the only honor I desire is that of assisi:ing to 
defend, as a fighter in the ranks,. the liberties of my 
fellow citizens and the freedom of this beautiful coun- 
try," was his patrotic reply. 

Davy Crockett was a character of whom history has 
recorded many an incident. Tall, lithe, athletic, as 
courageous as a lion, he had been a Tennessee fron- 
tiersman of whom the state had been proud. He had 
led his fellow settlers many a time against the Indian's 
and outlaws who had infested that state in early times, 
and had finally, in the days of peace, been sent to the 
American Congress, There he was a striking char- 
acter, in his buckskin dress and coonskin cap, with 
his favorite rifle always by him. He had the courage 
of his convictions and followed the dictates of his 
conscience rather than the mandates of his party, his 
favorite motto, which made him famous, "Be Sure 
You Are Right, Then Go Ahead," being his guide in 
all his transactions, and he was not returned a second 
time. He had proclaimed in his canvass that if de- 

54 



Pvoweev SoVdvev axvd SUvVeswscv^ 




UyrjyO/cL ^hoc^/ip 






feated he should g-o to Texas and take up the cause 
of Liberty there, and had kept his word. 

Crockett had no ambitions to lead the Texans, he 
preferred to follow. But from the moment he set foot 
on Texas soil he had been an enthusiastic devotee of 
the cause of the Texans, and now, at the crucial mo- 
ment, was a fighter among fighters, a private among 
privates, yet a counsellor among counsellors within the 
walls of the cradle of the liberty of the Lone Star Re- 
public. 

Seriousness of the Siege Understood. 

Within the Alamo there could be no misunder- 
standing of the seriousness of the siege. Travis com- 
prehended the situation and saw that it was des- 
perate. Unless relief should come there could be but 
one result. 

A consultation decided that assistance must be se- 
cured, and one of the bravest of the brave defenders 
of the Alamo, Col. James B. Bonham, a South Caro- 
linian who had colonized to Texas, volunteered to un- 
dertake the hazardous task of getting through the 
enemy's lines and carrying the message of distress 
to Col. Fannin at Goliad. Under cover of darkness 
he made his way through the pickets, and once well 
out on the prairie rode with the swiftness of the wind 
in the interests of his compatriots and their cause, 
making Goliad on the morning of the 25th and earn- 
estly laying the situation before the commander of the 
post at that point. 

Fannin had but a small force and it took time to 

57 



gather together enough men to make the effort worth 
the while. On the 28th he started with a troop of 
cavalry and several cannon. But the traveling was 
heavy, the wagons were in bad condition, and head- 
way was made too slowly for Bonham, who galloped 
back alone and under cover of night, as when he left, 
succeeded in returning to the Alamo with his an- 
nouncement of reinforcements within a short time. 

But Urrea was j marching upon Goliad and the 
news was carried to Fannin, compelling him to return 
with haste to his own garrison, and thus the Alamo 
heard nothing from aid from that direction. 

Meanwhile the courier who had first set out for 
San Felipe had succeeded in arousing the garrison at 
Gonzales and thirty-two courageous volunteers broke 
through the Mexican lines on the eighth day of the 
siege and got within the enclosure, where they were 
enthusiastically received by Travis, who yet hoped 
that enough might come from various garrisons and 
settlements to enable him to hold the fortress against 
the enemy. 

But in this hope he was to be disappointed. The 
Mexicans were pressing hard and drawing closer and 
closer. The distances between the colonists' posts were 
great, and traveling was bad. Couriers were the only 
means for the transporting of dispatches, and they 
were often shot down and failed to reach their des- 
tination. The country was sparsely settled and with 
difficulty could even small bands of fighting men be 
gathered. It was the destiny of fate that the Alamo 
was not to be relieved. The hundred, and seventy- 

58 



seven brave heroes who were besieged within the mas- 
sive walls of the church and fortress were to be immo- 
lated upon the sacred altar of liberty, and the day of 
their immolation was near. 

Patriotic and Pathetic Appeal. 

The Mexicans had not yet attacked the fort, so 
Travis wrote a patriotic and pathetic appeal on the 
24th of February and sent a second courier out of the 
walls in the hope that he might get with safety to the 
settlements and be able to arouse the scattered colon- 
ists to a concerted reinforcement and defense of the 
city. His appeal speaks the story of his courage bet- 
ter than any words a historian might pen, reading as 
follows : 



"CoMMANDANCY OF THE Alamo, Bexar, February 24, 1836. 

"Fellow-Citizens and Compatriots : I am besieged by a 
thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have 
sustained a continued bombardment for twenty-four hours, and 
have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender 
at discretion ; otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword 
if the place is taken. I have answered the summons with a 
cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. 
/ shall never surrender or retreat. Then I call on you in the 
name of liberty, of patriotism, and of everything dear to the 
American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch. 
The enemy are receiving reinforcements daily, and will no 
doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. 
Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sus- 
tain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who for- 
gets not what is due to his own honor and that of his coun- 
try. Victory or death ! W. Barrett Travis, 
"Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding." 

'T. S. — The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared 
in sight we had not three bushels of corn. We have since 
found in deserted houses eighty or ninety bushels, and got 
into the walls twenty or thirty head of beeves. T." 

59 



On the first day of March Travis made still an- 
other attempt to get in communication with the coun- 
cil, then in session in the town of Washington, in 
which he told his compatriots of the situation and an- 
nounced his intention of holding out to the last wheth- 
er relief should come or not. 

"Blood-red banners fly from the church at Bexar 
(Cathedral San Fernando) and the camp entirely sur- 
rounding the Alamo are tokens that the war is one of 
vengeance against the 'Rebels.' I shall continue to 
hold the Alamo until I get relief from my country- 
men, or shall perish in the attempt." 

Evidently anticipating the inevitable he wrote a 
fiiend to take care of his little boy, adding- in the let- 
ter: "If the country should be saved I may make 
h:m a splendid fortune; but if lost, I perish and he is 
the son of one who died for his country." 

This boy, then a lad of tender years, was later a 
member of the Texas legislature, a captain in the 
United States army, and at one time belonged to Col- 
onel Sidney Johnston's regiment. 

These letters were sent by couriers who never re- 
turned. The distances they had to travel were so 
great that the Alamo had fallen probably even before 
they got to their destination. 

THE DAWN OF BATTLE MORN. 



It was on the sixth of March, 1836, on a beautiful 
Sabbath morning at the close of the first week of the 
month, in the loveliest springtime in Texas, that the 
Alamo fell. 

60 




FACADE OF MISSION DE SAN JOSE, 1718. 



In order to get an intelligent and appreciative un- 
derstanding of the situation the exercise of a little ret- 
lospection is required. 

When the battle of the Alamo occurred there were 
but a few thousand people in all that vast domain em- 
braced within the geographical limits of Texas. 

Louisiana was still but a province, St. Lbuis but a 
trading post. There was no Chicago. The iron horse 
had not yet disturbed the slumbers and reveries of the 
residents of the numerous peaceful valleys of the 
United States. The telegraph was unknown. There 
was no Kansas, no Nebraska, no Dakota, no state of 
California. 

Texas was as far removed from American civiliza- 
tion in that day as South Africa is from England at 
the present time. The nearest settlement worthy the 
name was two hundred miles from San Antonio. The 
country was one vast area of prairie ^and chaparral, 
the home of the Indian and buffalo, the cayote and 
cougar. The Alamo was the strongest fortress in the 
territory, San Antonio the central post of military 
operations. It being the strongest of them all any 
help that might come would have to come from weaker 
stations. 

The city was so isolated that it was a kingdom in 
itself. The traveler would ride day after day with- 
out seeing a habitation of any kind, a ranch, a jackal 
("hacal") or even a dugout, coming upon San Antonio 
and its mission settlements out of the depths of the 
mesquite, a city of the valley and plains, hidden in the 

63 



mighty pecan and cottonvvoods of the river, isolated 
and alone. 

In the stone church of the Franciscans were grouped 
a hundred and seventy-seven courageous American 
pioneers. 

Outside were five thousand Mexican soldiers under 
a tyrannical leader, seeking to break down the pro- 
tecting barriers of stone and mortar and massacre 
them all. 

From the tablet of memory the present geography 
and substantial cities and towns and railroads and 
enterprises of the United States and the great South- 
west must be effaced. 

Only the Alamo, the little town west of the river, 
the handful of American defenders and the gaudily- 
dressed and well-equipped Mexican army without the 
walls, form the picture upon which the s-un rose on 
that beautiful Sabbath in the Texas springtime, when 
nature was arrayed in her best garb and the soft air 
was laden with the delicious perfume of a thousand 
flowers, the birds warbling their sweet melodies in the 
leafy bowers of the majestic trees, and the oncoming 
light of the rising orb of day dispeUing the mists of 
the valley. 

It was the hour when the monks would have been 
at prayer. 

The siege had dragged its weary length along partly 
because Santa Anna had waited for reinforcements. 
He had learned by the experience of his generals in 
the field that the Texans were desperate fighters, and 

64 



that nothing but overwhelming numbers could over< 
come them. He already had nearly five thousand men, 
but he waited for the arrival of an additional force ol 
two thousand more, under command of General Tolza, 
before beginning his final attack upon the garrison and 
church. Tolza arrived on the 3d of March, and now 
an army of seven thousand Mexicans surrounded the 
Alamo. 

On the 5th the commander-in-chief communicated 
his plans to his generals. Unusual quantities of am- 
munition w^ere distributed to the troops, and scaling 
ladders and crowbars were parceled out as a part of 
the equipment. 

During the night of the 5th the troops were assigned 
their positions and were marched to their respective 
stands. The Matamoras Battalion was halted on a 
favorable position near the river. Behind the Alamo 
General Cos occupied a commanding station with two 
thousand well-trained troops, among them those he 
had led out of the mission when the Americans came 
into its possession, General Tolza's command holding 
the ground to the south. The attacking troops were 
under Amat, but Santa Anna was the power behind 
them all. * 

Official Orders for Attack. 



The following official orders governing the attack 
have been preserved in history: 

"The reserves will be composed of the battalion of Sappers 
and Miners, and the five companies of the Grenadiers of the 
Matamoras, Jimenes and Aldamas battalions of regulars, and 
of the Toluca and San Luis battalions of volunteers. 

"The reserve will be commanded by the General-in-Giief in 

65 



person, at the time of making the attack, but these forces will 
be organized by Col. Don Agustia Amat, under whose control 
they will remain from this evening, and who will conduct 
them to the point which will be designated to him at the 
proper time, 

"The first column will be provided with ten scaling ladders, 
two crowbars and two axes ; the second will be provided with 
the same quantity; the third with six, and the fourth with 
two. The men carrying the ladders will sling their guns over 
their shoulders, so as to leave them entirely free to place their 
ladders wherever they may be directed. 

"Grenadier and cavalry companies will be supplied with 
six packages of cartridges to the man, and to the infantry 
companies four with two extra flints. The latter will be en- 
cumbered with neither overcoats, blankets nor anything which 
will impede the rapidity of their movements. During the day 
all caps will be provided with chin straps. Corps command- 
ers will pay particular attention to this provision, and are also 
required to see that the men are provided with shoes, or other 
covering for their feet. 

"The men composing the attacking column will retire to rest 
at sundown, preparatory to moving at midnight. 

"The men not well drilled will remain at their quarters. 

"Arms, particularly bayonets, will be put in the best condi- 
tion. 

"When the moon rises the riflemen of the San Luis battallion 
of volunteers will retire to their quarters, abandoning the 
points they cover along the line, so as to give them time to 
put their equipage in readiness. 

"The cavalry, under the command of Gen. Don Joaquin 
Ramirezy y Sesma, will occupy the Alameda, and saddle up 
at 3 o'clock in the morning. It will be their duty to watch 
the camp, and prevent the escape of anyone who may attempt 
to do so. 

"The honor of the nation, and of the army, being involved 
in this contest against the daring foreigners in our front. His 
Excellency, the General-in-Chief, expects that each man will 
perform his duty, and contribute his share in securing a day 
of glory to his country, and of honor to the Federal Govern- 
ment, which knows how to honor the brave men of the army 
of operations who shall distinguish themselves by performing 
feats of valor. uj^^^ Valentine Amador." 

"I certify the foregoing to be a true copy. 

"Ramon Martines Coro, Secretary." 

"A correct translation. David. G. Whiting, 

"Translator General Land Office." 

66 



N. B.— This order, Becerra said, was issued March 5, 1836, 
and copied next day. 

This was the order given by the President of Mexico, and 
commander of her armies, to six thousand Mexicans, the elite 
of the Mexican army, who had been besieging less than two 
hundred Texans for thirteen days. It speaks for itself. 

On March 7th Gen. Santa Anna issued a "Proclamation," 
in which he speaks of the immolation of the Texans as a mat- 
ter of justice, and argues that the "Army of Operations" has 
been marched into Texas for the performance of such deeds. 



Within the Alamo the gallant little band of Ameri- 
cans were waiting patiently for the attack they knew 
would come. 

Travis had called them all together, from church 
and fortress, from barracks and prison, from hospital 
and kitchen, and had given them his farewell address. 
This will be found in Historical Sketch No. i. Then 
in silence and with determination they repaired to 
their various stations, prepared to fight to the end, to 
deal blow for blow, take life for life, and surrender 
only in the arms of death, never in the hands of the 
enemy. The roof of the church held their cannon. 
Behind its embattlement they would fight to the last. 
If driven from the azotea they would seek the refuge 
of the heavy-walled rooms, and there in hand-to-hand 
struggle would hold on to the death. 

There were no dissenters. But one man, whose 
name was Rose, preferred to try to escape, and he low- 
ered himself beyond the rear wall, battered down in 
previous conflicts. History gives no record of his fate. 
It could not have been better than that of the patriots 
who preferred to stay, the surrounding limits being 

67 



overrun with Mexican soldiers on the lookout for 
escaping Texans. 

The Battle Begins. 

With the approach of dawn the Mexicans began 
their closing in. On every side the brilliant equipment 
of a gaudy troop glittered in the darting streaks of the 
rising sun. From out the trees they came. From out 
the chapparal their forms rose like a mighty swell. 
Behind the Alamo General Cos, whom the Americans 
had paroled on honor, led his regiments of Montezu- 
mas directly under the walls on the East. Santa Anna 
came from across the river, behind the main body of 
the army, urging them on with all the wickedness of a 
demon and the skill of a trained chieftain. 

As the sun rose over the hill to the East the sharp 
rattle of musketry was reverberating through the bush 
on every side, while the heavy boom of the Mexican 
cannon from across the river and to the South of the 
fortress echoed and re-echoed down the valley and to 
the river's springs. A perfect rain of shot and shell, 
a hail of minnie balls and musketry lead, kept sweeping 
the parapets of the Alamo. The Mexicans pressed on, 
coming closer and closer, drawing their lines tighter 
and tighter on every side of the fortress, the little band 
of Americans biding their time. 

Travis and Crockett and Bonham were calm. Bowie 
was below on his dying couch, violently ill with pneu- 
monia, but from his bed he encouraged the men and 
calmed the women. Occasionally the sharp crack of a 
Texas rifle told the story of the death of a Mexican 

68 



officer, the patriots reserving their fire for the com- 
manders and until the scaHng of the walls, which they 
knew was to come, should have been begun. 

Finally this moment arrived. The Mexicans pressed 
their men forward. The outer walls were attacked 
with rams and cannon and were easily broken down. 
The enclosure outside the church swarmed with the 
dark-skinned Latins, bent on the destruction of the 
hated race within, and the time had come for action by 
the patriots which should count for all they might be 
able to give. 

"Boom," "boom," sung their cannon from parapet 
and corner into the swarm below. "Crack," "crack," 
"ping," "ping," sang their rifles, and before their gall- 
ing fire of ball and slug a thousand Mexicans went to 
earth. 

The Texans fought like fiends. Their carnage was 
awful. Every man was an expert with his gun and 
employed it to the best advantage. 

As the ladders were thrown against the outer walls 
of the church and barracks and Mexican heads would 
show themselves on the upper rounds, above the wall, 
"crack" would go a rifle or a pistol, and down would 
fall a swarthy form. 

But their numbers made their losses little felt, and 
under the prodding of their commander's swords and 
the wild excitement of the conflict others would mount 
the ladders and get to the top, only to fall upon the 
stricken form of a comrade who had already gone the 
way. 

The cannon were no longer of service on either side. 

69 



The conflict had resolved itself into a personal encoun- 
ter between man and man. 

The Texans shot as long as they had ammunition, 
and then clubbed the Mexicans down the walls, until 
exhausted by their struggles and laborious physical 
efforts they began to fall and the Mexicans saw their 
victory. 

Over the walls they climbed and fell. With clubbed 
rifles, pistol butts and knives the Americans kept up 
the struggle. The plaza of the monastery was full of 
the dark-skinned fighters by this time, the American 
force being diminished moment by moment. 

It was an awful carnage, a slaughter whose equal 
has not been recorded since the day of Thermopylse. 

Under a fierce ramming and barring the Northeast 
corner of the monastery gave way, and through the 
break Castrillion forced his men. The plaza was filled 
in a minute, the court was packed, and the North doors 
of the church, into which the Americans had backed 
for their final stand, was attacked by a tremendous 
power of men and rams. The openings were blocked 
by sacks of sand, behind which dodged the remaining 
patriots, picking orf a man here and there with leaden 
balls, nails and scraps of iron, with which they were 
compelled to load their guns. 

The doors were blown in with powder blasts and 
then, after the fearful struggle, which had now lasted 
more than two and a half hours, Mexican and Texan 
faced each other in the burying ground of the Alamo, 
the main body making their final stand in the audito- 
rium of the chapel. 

70 



Again the Mexicans brought their cannon into play, 
so dreadful had been the havoc the Americans wrought 
among them. The front doors were attacked with 
grape and canister, yielding at last to a terrific bom- 
bardment, which cost the Americans many a life. Into 
the chapel the Mexicans madly rushed, over the bodies 
of patriots killed by the grape and canister fire they fell. 
The Americans were now attacked in their final cham- 
ber of death from behind and in front, and there they 
fought as never men fought before, until every heart 
had been stilled in death and every voice had been 
forever hushed. 

With pistol-butt and rifle, knife and bayonet, with 
stones and pieces of iron, they fought their death- 
fight, overwhelmed and crushed by force of numbers, 
no one asking for quarter, none offering it to the other. 

The confusion was awful, the carnage frightful. 
The crack of firearmis, the shouts of defiance and 
groans of pain, the death agonies of the wounded, the 
screaming of the women, the loud reverberation of the 
cannon without, fired in upon the gallant handful 
which were left, what an awful contrast within the 
sacred walls of the old Franciscan chapel with the serv- 
ice to God which was solemnized on the Sabbath of 
the monks and their converts ! 

Down into the very jaws of death climbed the Mexi- 
cans who scaled those walls and swarmed the yards, 
and into the jaws of death madly rushed the bronze 
soldier who dared his way to the chapel. It cost a life 
to enter a room, even the bedridden Bowie fighting 

7a 



from his couch and yielding only when he fell back 
upon his pillow with his life shot out. 

History tells that Travis was killed early in action 
and that Crockett, Evans and Bonham directed the 
fighting as long as further directing w^as to be done. 
Under a dying injunction from the leader Captain 
Evans -tried to blow up the magazine at the final mo- 
ment, that he and his compatriots might perish by their 
own act and not by the hand of the invader, but as he 
was touching the light to the fuse he fell, pierced to 
the heart by a Mexican bullet, and the carnage went on. 

Crockett was among the last to die. His "Betsy" 
made many a Mexican rue the day he had joined the 
army, -and when there was no more time to load he 
clubbed many a foe to death with his gun before he 
finally succumbed, his body bullet-ridden for minutes 
before he gave up the struggle. 

^ ^ if 

It was well along toward the middle of the forenoon 
before the conflict ended. The Americans had fought 
against insurmountable odds, and had held out against 
an enemy of tremendous strength, vicious cunning and 
revengeful head and heart. Every inch of ground had 
been contested. For every Texan's life the Mexicans 
had paid thirteen fold. 

The church was a morgue and charnel house. Mexi- 
cans and Americans were lying in clusters and piles 
in every corner and angle. The floors of the smaller 
rooms were actually covered by the lifeless forms of 
the combatants, while cords of bodies of brown and 

74 



white were clumped before the main doorway, over 
which the hordes who had broken through in the final 
struggle had had to climb. 

In his report to the commander-in-chief a Mexican 
officer wrote as follows : 

"An order was given me to gather our dead and 
wounded. It was a fearful sight. Lifeless soldiers 
covered the ground surrounding the Alamo, and were 
heaped in piles inside the fortress. Blood and brains 
covered the ground and spattered the walls. Ghastly 
faces met our eyes as we moved them with despondent 
hearts. Our loss in front of the Alamo was represent- 
ed by two thousand killed and three hundred wounded. 
The killed received their wounds in the head, ne(!:k and 
shoulders, rarely below that. The firing of the be- 
sieged was terribly accurate, and when a Texan rifle 
was leveled on a Mexican he was considered as good 
as dead. All this indicated bravery and cool self-pos- 
session of the men engaged in a hopeless conflict with 
an enemy numbering more than thirty to one. They 
inflicted on us a loss ten times greater than they sus- 
tained." 

The victory of the Alamo was dearly bought. A 
hundred and seventy-six Americans had held them at 
bay for twelve days of siege, and, finally, though every 
man among them was massacred, this gallant little 
band had sold their lives at the expense to their foe of 
two thousand killed and three hundred wounded. For 
every American life there had been expended more 
than thirteen Mexican soldiers, the flower of the Dic- 
tator's splendid army. 

75 



The siege and battle of the Alamo caused intense ex- 
citement throughout the country and aroused the in- 
terest of the United States in the cause of Texas. Of- 
ficially the great republic did not interfere. But indi- 
vidually thousands of her citizens hurried to the fron- 
tier and took up arms with the Texans, excited to ac- 
tion by the courage and fortitude of the heroes of the 
Alamo, whose immolation made Texas free. 

Monument Erected and Destroyed. 

The Alamo is the monument of the State to the 
heroes who met death within. It is held as a State 
Museum, sustained under contract with the State by 
the city of San Antonio. 

To an Englishman named Nagle belongs the honor 
of having originated the first statue to those who de- 
fended the fortress, which unfortunately was destroyed 
by fire when the capitol at Austin burned, in 1880, and 
which has not been reproduced. 

It stood at the entrance to the capitol ; on its four 
sides, above the inscriptions, being carved the names 
of Travis, Bowie, Crockett and Bonham. 

On the North front of the statue was the following 
inscription : 

"To the God of the Fearless and Free Is Dedicated 
This Altar of the Alamo." 

On the West front it read : 

"Blood of Heroes Hath Stained Me. Let the Alamo 
Speak, That Their Im.molation Be Not Forgotten." 

On the South front it read: 

76 



"Be They Enrolled With Leonidas in the Host of the 
Mighty Dead." 

On the East front there was the following inscrip- 
tion: 

"Thermopylae Had Her Messenger of Defeat, But 
the Alamo Had None." 

Perhaps at some future time, may be even within the 
life of the present generation, Texas will again build 
a monument and place it at the front of her splendid 
capitol building, which shall be commemorative of the 
deeds done in the body by the gallant heroes who died 
so nobly in the cause of liberty and independence. 

^ ^ ^ 

Following the siege and battle of the Alamo the 
bodies of the Americans who had been so ruthlessly 
slain therein were taken to where the German Catholic 
church now stands, on East Commerce street, and 
there were burned. Under orders from Santa Anr 
Colonel Mora sent out his troops to bring in wood, and 
alternate layers of cord wood and bodies were piled 
into a great funeral pyre, from which the smoke rose 
on high as incense, lost in the great canopy as it 
wended its way heavenward. Later the bones of the 
martyrs were gathered and buried by Colonel Juan N. 
Seguin. 

And thus ended the most memorable struggle re- 
corded in all the history of America. Many deeds of 
valor have immortalized her citizens. Many cour- 
ageous conflicts mark the pathway of American civili- 
zation. The Revolutionary War and the unfortunate 

77 



struggle between the States witnessed many a deed of 
heroism, many a sacrifice that should not have been. 
But to the Alamo remains the glory of the most un- 
daunted bravery, the credit of the most courageous 
heroism, and the shame of the blackest massacre th?.: 
American history records. Its significance was great, 
its achievement worthy the best effort of the ablest in- 
scriber of history's best deeds. The visitor cannot but 
be profoundly impressed as he stands within the sacred 
walls of this ancient church and fortress, and to him 
the lives and work of the heroes who fell in its defense 
cannot but be a glorious inspiration. 



FROM THE ALAMO TO SAN JACINTO. 



From the Alamo to San Jacinto is but a step. In- 
toxicated by his success in destroying the garrison at 
the former Santa Anna lost no time in making prep- 
arations for an invasion further East. Mrs. Dickinson 
and her child were put upon a horse and sent to Hous- 
ton's headquarters as a messenger of victory and de- 
fiance. The Alamo had fallen, the American must go. 

But the Texans were made of sterner stuff. The 
fall of the Alamo both shocked and enraged them. 
They had not dreamed that so large an army would be 
brought from the City of Mexico to overcome the gar- 
rison, and its destruction came as a complete surprise. 
Nor had it been expected that Santa Anna himself 
would take the field. 

78 



Houston lost 110 time in calling his councillors to- 
gether and gathering an army of defense. Travis' 
appeal did not reach him until the day the Alamo fell. 
Its courage had a thrilling effect upon the patriots, and 
by the nth Houston had gathered several hundred 
troops together and had got as far vv^est as Gonzales. 
There it was thought to make a stand, but finding a 
garrison of less than three hundred men a retreat was 
ordered until reinforcements could be had. 

Fannin was ordered to gather in his men and join 
the main force, after burying his cannon and destroy- 
ing the fort. But it took time to get couriers out to 
the various bodies of troops scouting the frontier, and 
Urrea came upon him when but a few miles from 
Goliad and he and his force were destroyed, cruelly 
massacred a few^ days after their honorable surrender, 
under promise of parole and return to Louisiana. 

The destruction of Fannin further fired the patriot 
heart, and Houston's force increased day by day. 
Santa Anna had meanwhile styled himself the "Na- 
poleon of the West" and had heralded his determina- 
tion to destroy every settlement and town and slaugh- 
ter every American his forces might capture. Gon- 
zales was burned shortly after the patriots had re- 
treated from it, and on to the East the victorious Mex- 
icans marched. 

But the end was near. The Colonist army had 
swelled to several thousand men. Their intrepid leader 
inspired them with courage, and the battle-cry of ''Re- 
member the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" cemented 
them as a single man, bent on freedom and revenge. 

79 



On the 2 1 St of April the contending armies met at 
San Jacinto. When Houston's forces had crossed the 
river he burned the bridges behind them. Escape there 
was none. It was victory or death, and victory meant 
Hberty. 

It is beyond the scope of this monograph to detail 
the combat of San Jacinto. It was a hard-fought bat- 
tle, a combat to the death, a struggle for independence. 
The Americans won. Their valor was a marvel to the 
Mexican chieftain. Such bravery and dashing courage 
he had never met on the field of battle. The heroes of 
the Alamo fought behind heavy walls, the heroes of 
San Jacinto in the open field. The Mexican forces 
were overwhelmed and dismayed. 

General Cos was captured and was shot for having 
violated his San Antonio parole. Santa Anna escaped 
until the next day, when he was captured and taken 
before Houston. That he was not made to pay the 
penalty of death for his deeds was due to Houston's 
magnanimity and because it was believed that with him 
as a prisoner better terms for independence might be 
secured. 

The Mexican commander was held captive until a 
Treaty of Peace and Independence was drawn, on the 
14th of May, when Texas became a free and indepen- 
dent repubUc, a sovereign nation, later to become a 
member of the galaxy that forms the American Union. 

An interesting event in connection with the signing 
of the treaty was that not having a seal Governor 
Burnett cut from his coat a button bearing the lone 
star and an oak leaf and laurel wreath and impressed 

80 



it thereupon, thus giving to Texas her seal, her flag 
and her sobriquet, the Lone Star State. 

The flag that had waved over the Alamo during the 
American occupation was the tri-colored Mexican ban- 
ner, with the date of the Texas Constitution emblaz- 
oned thereon. With the massacre the Mexicans flew 
their own to the breeze, the tri-color with snake and 
eagle as an emblem. 

The president of the Republicans at that time, Deaf 
Smith, whose sobriquet came from defective hearing, 
marched to the relief of the Alamo upon receipt of 
Travis' appeal, but as he got within sight of the city 
could see the Mexican colors and knew that the garri- 
son had fallen. Compelled to retrace his steps he over- 
took Mrs. Dickinson and her child and guide and acted 
as their escort to San Felipe. 

Later she and her daughter resided in San Antonio, 
living in this city to the time of her death. 



81 



PART II. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. i, 



The long room into which the visitor first enters 
when inspecting the Alamo was originally the nave of 
the church when the buildings were used as a mission. 
It is also where the bloodiest of the battle occurred, 
after the Americans withdrew from the roof and were 
driven within from the yard and outlying buildings. 

During the siege it had been converted into a hospital 
for the sick and wounded of the garrison. It was into 
this room that the intrepid Travis called his gallant 
band on the 4th of March, but two days before the 
massacre, and explained the desperateness of the situ- 
ation to them. 

''My Comrades : Stern necessity compels me to im- 
prove these few moments, while the enemy have ceased 
bombarding and withdrawn to an unusual distance. 
We are overwhelmed and our fate is sealed; within a 
few days, perhaps within a few hours, we must be in 
eternity. 

*T have continually received the promise of help and 
have long deceived you by extending you this hope, 

82 



from the fullness of my heart, instilling you with cour- 
age and bravery, as it has been extended me by the 
council at home. 

"But they have evidently not been informed of our 
perilous condition or ere this would have come to our 
rescue. My last call on Colonel Fannin remains un- 
answered and my messengers have not returned. The 
probabilities are his command has fallen into the hands 
of the enemy or that our couriers have been cut off and 
have not reached him." 

So little of bitterness did he feel in that sad hour that 
his soul in its sublimity had no reproach or censure. 

Continuing, he said to them : 

'It is no longer a question of how we may save our 
lives, but a question as to how best to prepare for death 
and serve our country. If we surrender we will be 
shot without taking the life of a single enemy. If we 
try to make our escape through the Mexican lines we 
will be butchered before we can dispatch our adver- 
saries. To either of these I am opposed, and ask you 
to withstand every advance of the enemy. And when 
they shall scale our walls at last and storm the fort let 
us slay them as they come, as they leap within slay 
them, as they raise their weapons to slay our compan- 
ions slay we all of them until our arms are powerless 
to lift our swords in defense of ourselves, our com- 
rades and our country. 

"Yet to every man I give permission to surrender or 
escape. My desire and decision is to remain in the 
fort and fight as long as breath remains in my body. 
But do as you think best, each of you, and those who 

83 



consent to remain with me to the end will give me joy 
unspeakable." 

His speech was received in silence. It was no occa- 
sion for cheers and enthusiasm. It was a solemn mo- 
ment, and the silence was oppressive. Stepping from 
where he had stood Travis drew a line with his sword 
on the dirt floor of the chapel, from right to left of 
the file, and taking his position on this line he left it 
to the little band to indicate their position. 

''Those who will remain and fight till we die step 
across this line to my right." 

Colonel Bowie called to his attendants to carry his 
cot across the line and place it by his leader's side. It 
was the signal for action. Every man but one followed 
him. Moses Rose declined. With his face covered by 
his hands he stood a moment, wrapt in thought, hes- 
itating as to what he should do. 

Bowie spoke up and said to him : "Rose, you do not 
seem to be willing to die with the rest." 

"No," he replied thoughtfully and earnestly, "I am 
not prepared to die and shall not if I can avoid it. I 
speak the language of the enemy fluently, and perhaps 
if I can clear the lines I may escape. I do not like 
to leave, but life is dear to me and I shall go." 

He gathered his things together, bid his farewell to 
the men he knew best, and dropping over the wall was 
gone. He escaped the lines and was cared for a few 
days at a settler's home, after which nothing of him is 
known. 

William Barrett Travis was a remarkable character 
of bravery and self-possession, a courteous knight, a 

84 



thorough soldier. He was born in South Carolina, in 
Edgefield district, on the 31st of July, 1809, moved to 
Alabama in 1818, to Conecuh County, in this and in 
Monroe County studied law, and was admitted to the 
bar before coming to Texas. He was a man of re- 
fined appearance and conduct, of stern yet gentle fea- 
tures. He was but twenty-seven years old at the time 

of his death. 

yf ^ yf 

For a long time following the siege the Alamo was 
more or less in a state of ruin. The Mexican armies 
moved on eastward, operating in that part of Texas 
until defeated at San Jacinto, and gave it no attention. 
The colonists repaired the worst breaks during the life 
of the Republic, but in 1848 the United States govern- 
ment put the building in what may be said to be its 
present state of repair. They floored it, however, with 
board floors, upper and lower, using the building for 
commissary purposes, these floors being removed when 
the building was set aside by the legislature as a State 
Historical Museum, in 1883, when the city took pos- 
session of it and tried to put it back to its original con- 
dition, as far as could be done with safety, except a 
few openings left for convenience, as it is to be seen 
to-day. 

The original walls were solid, without windows ex- 
cept those ornamenting the West front. The heavy 
columns on the North and South walls of the nave sup- 
ported arches which sustained the roof, made of stone 
and mortar. These arches stood out in a series, vaulting 
into a dome over the arms or transcepts, as the nave 

85 



forms the shape of a cross. The dome was crowned 
by a small cupola, supplied with windows, through 
which the light from above fell on the altar in perfect 
ray. With the aid of the light from the front win- 
dow and portal this was sufficient for the needs of the 
chapel. Above the entrance was an organ loft of solid 
masonry, as is still preserved in Mission Concepcion. 
The roof spanning the space over which the dome 
rose is now braced by two stone pillars, added during 
the occupancy of the United States. 

The outer walls of the mission having been consid- 
ered a safe protection the monks did not supply the 
inner openings with doors, all of them opening directly 

into the nave. 

^ ^r ^ 

The main doorway was of mountain cedar and mes- 
quite panels, beautifully carved and adorned, traces of 
the ornamentation yet to be seen in the doors of San 
Jose. 

Above the portal can be seen the monogram, **M. A. 
R.," "Maria Angelorum Regina" — Mary Queen of 
Angels. 

Of later cut are the initials ''N. O. D." — Nationum 
Omnium Domina — Mistress of All Nations — this per- 
taining to the vast influence and possessions of Spain 
at that time — 1744, the date of the mission's comple- 
tion. 

^ ^ 4^ 

The mission proper was erected upon consecrated 
ground, and surrounded by a court of its own, this 
enclosed in an inner wall, which the monks considered 

86 



adequate protection against attack. The inner wall 
separated the Alamo from the Plaza San Velaro, the 
latter being a small square or plaza before the monas- 
tery, into which, along the outer west wall, domestic 
dwellings opened for the Indians. 

The inner wall gave the Alamo a double protection 
on the West and South, the ditch forming the division 
line on the East. Not until the Texans had retreated 
into the church did the Mexicans force an entrance 
into this inner court and plant their guns before the 
front door of the church, a continuous rain of fire from 
the patriot's rifles holding them back until the Texans 
w^ere so reduced that they could keep up the continu- 
ous musketry no longer. 

The inner wall of the mission is shown in the plan 
of the Alamo to be found in this brochure. It has 
been told by historians that the enemy broke into the 
Alamo by the window on the South, which, however, 
was not there at the time of the siege. Nor was the 
Alamo roofless, as has been heralded by various writers 
on the history of Texas. It was from the roof, or azo- 
tea, that much of the fiercest fighting occurred, and 
not until the outer wall of the monastery had been 
scaled on the North, and until the cannons of the 
Mexican army had battered down the front door of 
the mission did Santa Anna's forces crowd in hordes 
into the Alamo as we see it to-day, slaughtering the 
small American force which remained until every man 
had fallen. 

The Sacristy which had been converted into a maga- 
zine, was a blind room inside the Alamo, and had Col- 

89 



onel Evans succeeded in lighting it with the torch not 
only would the little band which had taken their final 
refuge inside its sacred walls have perished, but the 
building itself, so sacred to every Texan who gives 
heed to the valorous deeds of its martyrs, would have 
been destroyed. The intrepid Evans fell, pierced by 
a Mexican bullet, as the vanguard broke through the 
door, fighting their way over the bodies of their com- 
rades and those of the Texans who had fallen with 
them in the hand-to-hand encounter which followed 
the bombardment of the Mexicans' guns. A minute 
more and the destruction would have been complete. 

The Alamo is seventy-five feet long, sixty-two feet 
wide, its walls are at present twenty-two feet high and 
four feet thick. They formerly extended three or four 
feet above the roof, forming a parapet of stone from 
behind which the Americans fought so successfully. 
The azotea, or roof, had afforded the monks a breath- 
ing place where they were safe from intrusion, as 
also from the arrow of the savage and the stray shot 
of the marauder. 

Could the secrets of this chapel be told, the secrets 
of the Franciscans in their solitude, of the Indians in 
their superstitions and fears, of the Mexicans in their 
hatreds of the Americans and the Americans in their 
hatreds of the Mexicans, could the heavy walls speak 
and tell the tales of anguish, sorrow, suffering and 
death that have been a part of their history, what a vol- 
ume they might produce ! The deeds of valor, the min- 
istering kindnesses, the religious consolation, the wor- 
ship of God, that have been a part of the lives of those 

90 



""' 2 

^ 



Z, K 
^ Z 









p. o 




walls, of that roof and floor, of that altar and those 
dark rooms, make up a record not often assigned to a 
single church. The Alamo stands for a great deal 
more than the thoughtless citizen and the careless vis- 
itor give heed. To-day its portals are opened wide to 
every one who cares to enter within the sacred pre- 
cincts of America's Thermopylae. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. 2. 



The small room to the left, as the visitor enters the 
Alamo, is where Bowie lay sick, convalescing from 
pneumonia, under the care of Madame Candelaria dur- 
ing the siege. He was too ill to take an active part in 
the conflict but fought to the last when the enemy 
forced itself into the chapel, after he had been moved 
across the way to an opposite room. 

Bowie's troop were volunteers and preferred not to 
serve under the command of Travis, who had charge of 
the regulars. The latter wanted harmony and gra- 
ciously submitted to an election by the men to see who 
should be commander-in-chief, he being the youngest 
of the officers among them. Bowie was still the favor- 
ite of his own company, but they accepted Travis as the 
general choice and served him faithfully and well. 

It was under Houston's orders that Bowie had 
joined the troop in the Alamo. He had been assigned 
to Goliad and adjacent points to confer with other 
officers of the volunteers, and after the performance 
of that duty had repaired to San Antonio. Caught 

93 



helpless on his sick bed Bowie showed the stuff of 
which he was made by firing from his couch with a 
pistol, dispatching several of the Mexicans as they bore 
down upon him, and finally, in the very struggles of 
death, resting on his elbow on his cot, he fought as one 
possessed of superhuman strength with the knife that 
bears his name until pinioned by Mexican bayonets, 
withdrawn only after the victor}' had been complete 
and every American was dead. 

James Bowie was an unusually intrepid and daring 
man, a member of a family of fighters as famous as 
the famous McCooks. His ancestry were sturdy Pres- 
byterians, the father's side from Scotland, the moth- 
er's from Wales'. His grandfather came to America 
in 1705, and with his son was a signer of the ^'Declara- 
tion of the Freemen of Maryland." In all the Ameri- 
can wars the Bowies have played their part, that of 
bravery and patriotism. In the short war with France 
in 1800, in the War of 1812, in the war with Mexico, 
in the Nicaraguan expedition, in the Texas conflict, 
in the Civil War and in the late war with Spain Bowies 
have wielded the sword and carried the musket, never 
declining to hear and obey their country's call, always 
at the front and in the thickest of the fight. 

James was no exception. He loved war and courted 
danger. According to a biography written by his 
brother he was born in Logan County, Kentucky, in 
the spring of 1796. His father was Rezin Bowie, his 
mother the daughter of a Welsh immigrant named 
Jones. The elder Bowie had been wounded and cap- 
tured by the British in the storming of Savannah and 

94 



had been nursed by i\Iiss Jones in the mihtary hospi- 
tal. The acquaintance and friendship there begun 
ended in the pHghting of their troth and the consum- 
mation of a happy married Hfe, blessed by eight chil- 
dren, of whom James was the seventh. 

The Bowies moved to Louisiana when the lad was 
but four years old, taking up their residence on Bush- 
ley Bayou, Catahoula Parish. Nine years later they 
moved to Opeloussas, where the balance of James' boy- 
hood life was spent. The country was new, the life 
that of frontiersmen. As a boy Col. Bowie was fond 
of hunting and roaming the forests, of lassoing alli- 
gators, trapping bears and breaking untamed horses. 
The more strenuous the sport the greater to his liking. 
At the age of eighteen he started in business for him- 
self, establishing a clearing and lumber camp on Bayou 
Boeuf, where he engaged for several years in the profit- 
able business of floating and marketing logs, occasion- 
ally visiting New Orleans in the interests of his busi- 
ness. 

Here he met Lafitte, the Galveston pirate, and, lured 
by the prospects of larger gains, joined with him 
in privateering for a time, the laxity of the laws and 
their enforcement encouraging their disobedience and 
defiance. Together with his brothers, Rezin and John, 
he also at one time engaged in illegal speculation in 
negroes and in a system of irregular practices against 
the government, these experiences being the dark spots 
that becloud an otherwise commendable and spotless 
career. 

With monies gained in the lumber business and in 

97 



his temporary experience as a privateer Bowie invested 
in lands, traded successfully, and soon amassed con- 
siderable wealth. He was provident and prospered. 
Later he engaged with activity in local politics and af- 
fairs, never running for office himself but becoming a 
factor of no inconsiderable importance in the campaigns 
of his country. Possessed of great personal magnetism, 
a hale fellow in every walk of life, an orator of no 
mean ability, and a man of the people, he won thou- 
sands of friends and was an accepted factor in the 
molding of the government of the frontier. He was 
an open-hearted, sincere and loyal friend, a deadly and 
daring enemy. But he also possessed the power to 
forgive and forget, and while it was said of him that 
he could hate "with all the rancor of an Indian" he 
could also forget and forgive with the charity of a 
woman. 

James had always felt an interest in the affairs of 
Texas from the time of his association witli Jean La- 
fitte, and before the war cloud appeared upon the hori- 
zon he decided to emigrate westward. Coahuilla and 
Texas were at that time one commonwealth, with Sal- 
tillo their capital. Bowie wanted to establish a cotton 
mill and had to go to Saltillo for permission and a 
grant. There he met and fell in love with the daughter 
of the vice-governor, marrying Ursallita Veramendi 
and locating at the capital, establishing his mills in the 
immediate vicinity. Two children had been born to them 
when cholera devastated Mexico and his wife and chil- 
dren were taken from him. Broken-hearted he re- 
turned to Texas just before the outbreak between that 

98 



territory and the mother country occurred, and im- 
mediately allied his fortunes with the Americans, be- 
coming at once a colonel of Texas volunteers. 

Colonel Bowie participated in almost every impor- 
tant skirmish and battle in the Texas war for independ- 
ence. At Nacogdoches, at San Saba, in the grass 
fight, at the battle before Concepcion, at Goliad and 
finally at the fall of the Alamo he distinguished himself 
with such daring and bravery that he was the idol of 
his men and the dread of the enemy. As Santa Anna 
was burning the bodies of the heroes of the Alamo 
he at first ordered Bowie's buried, remarking that he 
was too brave a man to be burned like a dog. Later 
he rescinded the order, however, with a *Tues no es 
casa, escade!" — ''Never mind, throw him in." The 
Mexican chieftain had been godfather to Ursalita Ver- 
amendi, whom Bowie had married. 

Bowie was impulsive, brave, sensitive to an inordi- 
nate degree, endowed with a splendid physique and a 
clear mind. His early life had been characterized by 
the usual list of frontier brawls and excitements, in 
more than one of which his life had been seriously 
endangered and in several of which he had been 
wounded. He knew no fear, was courageous to rash- 
ness, acted first and thought afterwards as a younger 
man. His later life was thoughtful, noble, charitable 
and that of a man who, brave as a lion himself, recog- 
nized and admired the same element in others. Small 
wonder that he was adored by his men. 

The knife which bears his name was given him by 
his brother upon the occasion of one of his Indian 
scoutings, prior to his removal to Mexico. 

99 

L.oi ^- 



From kinsmen of the fallen hero, Mr. S. J. Bowie 
of Anniston, Alabama, and Mr. H. B. Mackoy of Cin- 
cinnati, the data of Bowie's life and career have been 
secured. There is soon to be published a more ex- 
tensive account of his life than is possible in the pres- 
ent little volume. For their kindness- in permitting a 
review of advance manuscripts, whereby reliable and 
detailed information has been gained, the gratitude of 
the author is expressed. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. 3. 



The room to the right of the entrance was the Bap- 
tistry when the Alamo was used as a mission. Dur- 
ing the siege it was in this that six of the heroes took 
their last stand, after having been driven from room to 
room, there defending the sick and the women, who 
had taken refuge within. 

The women were five in number, Mrs. Dickinson and 
her daughter, Mrs. Alsbury and sister, and Madam 
Candelaria, who was Colonel Bowie's nurse. The two 
first named were wives of patriots within the walk. 
What became of Mrs. Alsbury and sister history has 
not recorded. 

It was in this chamber of death that Bowie met his 
fate. The latter had been moved into it, along with the 
women, just as the Mexicans were successfully scaling 
the walls. He was slain on his bed, fighting to the last. 
Crockett, the last to die, fell just outside the entrance, 
between the latter and the one next to it. 

100 




DOOR OF BAPTISTRY BEFORE WHICH CROCKETT FELL. 



A Memorable Appeal. 

An interesting incident in connection with the clos- 
ing scene of the massacre is related in a memorable 
speech made by the Honorable Guy M. Bryan, a mem- 
ber of the legislature from Brazoria, advocating a joint 
resolution looking to the relief of the infant daughter 
of Almiram and Susannah Dickinson. Fired by the 
memory of the siege and battle of the Alamo, he spoKe 
in behalf of the heroine's cause as follows : 

"I had intended, Mr. Speaker, to remain silent upon 
this occasion. But silence would now be a reproach 
when to speak is but a duty. No one has raised his 
voice in behalf of this orphan child; several have 
spoken against her claim. I rise. Sir, as an advocate of 
no common cause. Liberty was its foundation, heroism 
and martyrdom have consecrated it. I speak for the 
orphan child of the Alamo. No orphan of the patriots 
can send up a similar petition to this house. None 
other can say, 1 am the child of the Alamo.' 

"Well do I recollect the consternation which was 
spread throughout the land when the sad tidings 
reached our ears that the Alamo had fallen. It was 
here that a gallant few, the bravest of the brave, threw 
themselves between the enemy and the settlements, 
determined never to surrender or retreat. They re- 
deemed their pledge to Texas with the forfeit of their 
lives. They fell the chosen sacrifice of Texan freedom. 

"Texas, unapprised of the approach of the invader, 
was sleeping in fancied security when the big gun of 
the Alamo told that 'Atilla' of the South was near. In- 

103 



furiated by the resistance of Travis and his noble 
band, he halted his whole army beneath the walls and 
rolled wave after wave, surge after surge, of his 
mighty host against these storm battlements of free- 
dom. In vain he strove. The flag of liberty, the Lone 
Star of Texas, still streamed out upon the breeze and 
proudly floated from the outer walls. Maddened, he 
pitched his tents and reared his batteries, and finally 
stormed and took a black and ruined wall, the blood- 
stained walls of the Alamo. The noble martyred spir- 
its of every one of its gallant defenders had already 
taken their flight to another fortress, one not made of 
hands. 

''The detention of the enemy enabled Texas to re- 
cuperate her energies, to prepare for the struggle in 
which freedom was the prize, slavery the forfeit. It en- 
abled her to assemble upon the Colorado that gallant 
band, which but for Houston would then have fought 
and beat the enemy, and which eventually triumphed 
on the plains of San Jacinto and rolled back the tide 
of war upon the ruthless invader. 

**But for that stand at the Alamo, Texas would have 
been desolated to the banks of the Sabine. Then, sir, 
in view of these facts, I ask this house to vote the pit- 
tance prayed for. To whom ? To the living witness, 
and her mother, of this awful tragedy, 'the bloodiest 
picture in the book of time,' and the bravest act that 
ever swelled the annals of any country. 

"Grant this boon. She claims it as the christened 
child of the Alamo, baptised in the blood of a Travis, 
a Bowie, a Crockett and a Bonham. It would be a 

104 



> o 

o ^ 
S) o 

a 



CO 



( 



•=3 





1 







shame to Texas to turn her away. Give her what she 
asks, in order that she may be educated and become a 
worthy child of the State, and take that position in 
society to which she is entitled by the illustrious name 
of her martyred father, made illustrious because he 
fell in the Alamo. 

"Crockett ! Bowie ! Travis ! Bonham ! Fannin ! Re- 
member the Alamo V 

HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. 4- 



The burying ground, a large inner room of the hos- 
pital department or nave of the church, had no connec-. 
tion with the latter during the siege. It was originally 
dark, and in the small niche to the right of the entrance 
burned the holy light. This room connected with the 
monastery from the small archway in the right-hand 
corner, now walled in. 

The number of monks buried beneath the floor of 
this room has never been ascertained, nor were their 
remains removed when the mission was vacated. A 
current report is that when the soldiers were quartered 
in the monastery they found several skulls and numer- 
ous bones within the sacristy. 

The Sacristy adjoining was used as a powder mag- 
azine during the combat. The opening from this into 
the church was originally a large doorway which is 
now occupied by a small window. The original stone 
roof shows that this room was much longer than now, 
as the present partition intercepts a part of a second 
Moorish dome. Mission San Jose has three of these 
domes intact in its sacristy. 

107 



PART III. 



SKETCH OF THE MISSIONS. 



Mission de San Jose. 

The main door of the Alamo, which has already been 
mentioned, can be studied to better effect in the portal 
of Mission San Jose, known as the Second Mission, in 
order of distance from the city, four miles South of 
the Alamo, on the high ground West of the river. 

It was established in 1718, but is now greatly in ruin. 
It was in a fair state of preservation until in 1868, 
when the nave and almost the entire North wall of 
the church fell in. 

On the South a small room, originally a baptistry, 
capped by three Moorish domes, is used as- a chapel. 
The window of this room is a work of art, highly 
carved in bas-relief, an exquisite piece of workmanship 
in its time. It still retains traces of great beauty. 

The king of Spain sent Juan Huicar, one of the best 
architects of his day, to the frontier to decorate the ex- 
teriors of the more important missions, his best work 
finding expression in the main facade of the San Jose 
church. 

108 



This was never altogether finished, owing to Hui- 
car's death. But it was nevertheless a facade of which 
any architect might well be proud, its grandeur produc- 
ing a profound effect upon the minds of the Mexicans 
and Indians of the early times. Among its ornaments 
are full-size statues of Saints Joseph, Benedict, Augus- 
tine and Francisco, crowning them all being a figure 
of the Immaculate Conception. 

Following upon the construction of the Alamo, or 
the Mission San Antonio de Velaro, as it was then 
called, and the Mission San Jose, foundations were laid 
for the Missions San Fernando, Concepcion, San Juan 
de Capistrano and San Franciscan de la Espada, in 

1731- 

San Fernando, the Main Plaza Cathedral of today, 
was used by Santa Anna as headquarters during the 
Siege of Bexar and Battle of the Alamo. Around it 
clustered a mission village of about fifteen hundred 
families, including a few Americans, these departing 
before hostilities began. The dome of this old mission 
is still well preserved, seen at its best from the Military 
Plaza side. Immediately beneath it is the present altar 
of the church. 

The front of this mission was rebuilt in modern style 
in 1872, but nearly all of the rear part is the product of 
the Franciscan monks in the first quarter of the 
eighteenth century. It is situated in the very heart of 
the city and is the chief Mexican place of worship of 
San Antonio and surrounding country today. Attend- 
ance upon their weird services is one of the attractions 
to visiting Americans at the present time. 

Ill 



Mission de la Concepcion. 

/ 

The Mission of the Immaculate Conception, two 
miles South of the Alamo, has also its original dome, 
roof and organ loft. The interior of this is a miniature 
Alamo, and gives the visitor a better idea of the orig- 
inal construction and appearance of the interior of the 
latter, as also of its strength as a fortress. With walls 
free of windows except on the West this mission 
stands grim and gray, in a good state of preservation, 
its dark twin towers rising above the beautiful foliage 
of the surrounding country, from which floated out o'er 
the 'Tlains of Bexar" the message of bells, calling the 
Indian and settler to prayer, their echoes lost in silence 
on the gentle breezes of the perfume-laden prairies. 
Solitary and alone it is a strong living testimonial of 
the distant and eventful past. 

In the room to the right of the entrance of this mis- 
sion is an elaborate baptismal bowl, inserted in the wall, 
from which the little pappooses and Mexican mucha- 
chos received their first sacrament of holy water and 
priestly function. 

The front of this mission was highly decorated in 
the brightest frescoing of which the Franciscans were 
capable, presumably for its effect upon the Indian 
mind. Close inspection reveals traces of this frescoing 
still, though the ravages of time and weather are mak- 
ing them gradually more and more indistinct. In 1887 
Bishop Neraz, then in charge of the diocese of San 
Antonio, had the mission repaired and dedicated to 
"Our Lady of Loudres." It is leased to a German and 

112 





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CATHEDRAL SAN FERNANDO. 



his family, who charge a nominal fee for admission. 
Tourists will find a visit to the Mission Concepcion and 
that of San Jose, on the opposite side of the river, of 
gratifying interest. 

Missions San Juan and San Franciscan. 

The Missions San Juan Capistrano and San Francis- 
can de la Espada, respectively six and nine miles down 
the river, were named for monks, the former born in 
Capistrano, Italy, in 1386, the latter founder of the 
Franciscan Order of Assisi. These missions are smallen 
and plainer, and much of their walls have passed into 
decay. But a visit to them is full of information. 
They are picturesquely located, while the old stone 
viaducts on the west side of the river recall vividly 
those of Italy, Egypt and Spain. 

Construction of the Missions. 

The mission buildings are all constructed of stone 
found in their immediate vicinity, a light limestone 
which is easily worked and which hardens with ex- 
posure. The larger ones had immense granaries for 
storing the products of the Indian patches adjacent to 
them, while the irrigation ditches which were a part of 
the system gave them plenty of water in times of even 
the severest droughts, and made the mission spots 
oases in the Texas desert that were fair to look upon. 
Several of these ancient canals still course the blue 
waters of the river among the gardens of the city, 
while the granary at San Jose gives a very fair idea 
of the means the monks established for the care of 

117 



their products. The granary of the Alamo occupied 
the site of the park in front of the church, the protect- 
ing wall running North and South beyond the site of 
the Opera House and the stores on that side of the 
Plaza. 

The North wall of the Alamo enclosure extended out 
into the middle of Houston street. It was two and a 
half feet thick and almost as high as the eaves of the 
church. It ran east as far as Dignowity hill, and as 
far to the South. A good many acres of ground were 
within the enclosure of the mission proper. 

The Alamo, considered consecrated ground, together 
with the monastery to the North, were separated from 
the balance of the field by a dividing fence of stone, 
almost as strong and high as the outer wall. 

Behind the church of the Alamo ran the ditch, an'd 
along its course grew stately cottonwoods, their leaves- 
rustling gently in the breezes from the gulf, the music 
sounding like the pattering of a gentle rain. The ditch 
on which these grew was known as the Madre de 
Acequia, or Mother Ditch, the only means the mission 
had of obtaining water. It requires but little play of 
the imagination to think of those mighty cottonwoods 
stretching forth their great arms as if to shelter the 
church and the little band within while that awful car- 
nage of death and destruction doomed the gallant band 
to their everlasting fate. The change of name from 
the Spanish Duke de Velaro to the local name of "The 
Alamo" seems most appropriate and poetic. 

The Alamo stands in the midst of a civilization such 
as the world has ever known, yet separate and alone 

118 




MISSION SAN JUAN DE CAPISTRANO, 1731-THIRD MISSION. 



with its dead. Among us, it is not yet of us. Its his- 
tory is its own, and as it Hves it holds aloft the record 
of deeds well done- whereby the liberty of Texas was 
purchased at a price though dear yet borne by the 
martyrs without murmur or complaint. 

"Remember the Alamo ! 
The very walls have voices — solemn tones, 
And spirits pulse their breathing in thy stones ; 
Not moans, for when I place them to my ears 
I hear the echo of Jacinto's cheers, 

On, On, Revenge the Alamo!" 

Live on, speak on forever, thou glorious Alamo ! 



121 



PART IV. 

Tributes to the Heroes of the Alamo. 
A TRIBUTE. 



Reverently Inscribed to the Alamo and Its Illustrious Dead. 



By Geo, D. Emery, Minneapolis, Minn. 

Tread softly in this sacred place 

Twice dedicated unto God, 
For martyrs of heroic race 

Have sanctified it with their blood. 
To teach the lessons of His faith 

In pious love these stones were piled. 
Ere Tyranny, with poisonous breath 

Its holy altars had defiled, 
Here bowed the monk in simple prayer, 

Here beads were told and masses sung, 
Hence over Bexar's plains afar 

The bells of God their message rung. 
And here when Liberty oppressed 

Took refuge from the Tyrant's wrong 
Her loyal sons with dauntless breast 

Around her drew their cordon strong. 
A Hero's soul in every eye, 

Bright with a hero's purpose grand. 
For Liberty, if need, to die 

Or, living, in her name to stand. 
Who reared these walls, 'neath smiling skies. 

To spread the Gospel's peace afar 
Ne'er dreamed an Empire here should rise 

'Mid the wild hurricane of war. 

122 




MISSION DE LA ESPADA, 1731— FOURTH MISSION. 



High blazoned on the scroll of Fame. 

Forever stands Thermopylae, 
And Balaklava's hills of flame 
Far echo England's bravery; 
But where shall prouder banners wave 

In nobler triumph o'er its foes 
Than where oppression found its grave 

And Freedom's bright Lone Star arose? 
These stains upon thy crumbling stones 

Mark where those dying heroes fell 
But ages hence in trumpet tones 

Shall fame their glorious triumph tell. 
Their leader drew with sacred blade 

Upon the sand that fatal line — 
"Who crosses this with me, he said 

"For Liberty, leaves all behind, 
"Flee those who can — come those who will, 

"For where can death more welcome be 
"Than where yon flag is waving still 

"The emblems of the noble Free ! 
"Our leaguing foes, a score to one 

"The mandates of the Tyrant bear 
"Our help must come from God alone 

"For man no longer heeds our prayer, 
"Then come with me, who will to stand 

"Where Honor's blood-stained pathway lies 
"As, on the Altar of our Land, 

"We lay a Freeman's sacrifice." 
Lit every eye with battle flame, 

Blanched not one hero's cheek with fear, 
But while Death called that Roll of Fame 

Each ringing voice responded "Here !" 
Brave hearts who heard that stirring call 

And forward pressed with eager tread. 
A rescued country mourns your fall 

Who thus her priceless ransom paid. 
For deeds like yours no fitter shrine 

On earth's broad bosom could be found : 
All temples reared to Love Divine 

Are freedom's holiest battle ground. 
Live on! Your names shall glory wreathe 

Where Freedom's fires shall brightest glow 
And ages yet unborn shall breathe 
The Spirit of the Alamo. 



125 



THE SIEGE OF THE ALAMO. 



By James D. Lynch. 



The Old World has its glory, and it teems 

With storied song and history's golden themes, 

Whose notes still tune the living harp of time, 

And thrill the patriot's heart in every clime. 

But yet, the Old World has not all— the New 

Can boast of its immortal themes, and view 

With pride the glare of many a name 

Which it has given to the scroll of fame. 

'Mong those full high enrolled, let Texas tell 

Of the New World's Leonidas — how fell 

Brave Travis, how his comrades, at the call 

Of glory, fell in one grand, glorious fall. 

In her far borders under Bexar's skies, 

Where the San Pedro takes its gushing rise. 

Bosomed in landscapes of Elysian beam, 

A fortress nestled near the emerald stream ; 

Where orisons were wont to wake the day, 

But now the ensanguined scene of mortal fray. 

Within its walls a chapel reared its shrine ; 

Around them Mexia demons drew their lines, 

While Travis and his Texans held the post 

Defiant of the fierce besieging host. 

The thundering cannons swept the crimson ground, 

While volleying muskets poured their hail around^ — 

The vengeful missiles clanged the fortress walls ; 

Its little windows rained a shower of balls. 

Five thousand men came on in curved array; 

Less than two hundred held the force at bay. 

Ten days and nights they urged their fierce attack. 

Ten days and nights they reeled and staggered back. 

Two hundred men, less twenty, aimed in front and fired, 

Two hundred men, less forty, faced about and fired ; 

One hundred men, less twenty, faced to right and fired ; 

One hundred men, less forty, faced to left and fired; 

Then forty men faced all around and fired. 

And front, right, left and rear the foe retired. ' 

126 



Now twenty men received the last assault, 
And caused the decimated foe to halt- 
But stemming now the dwindling fusilade, 
And overleaping scrap and palisade, 

They thronged the walls and through the breaches poured, 
And yet the Lone Star banner was not lowered. 
Withm, one thing remained— all else was lost— 
To barter life for death at dearest cost. 
||Blow up the fort !" undaunted Travis cried— 
"Blow up the fort!" he gasped in death and died. 
A faithful soldier hastened to obey. 
But fell before the deed could crown the day— 
With martial death the unequal combat end, 
And friend and foe in one blank ruin blend. 
Withm the breach the last heroic ten 
Now met the enemy — devoted men ! 
One moment more, one breath, one flash, now five 
Alone of all those martyrs were alive. 
Now four, now three, now two, now one, now none— 
The Alamo's red murderous work was done. 
Live on, grow old, thou glorious Alamo! 
Grow old in age, for thou canst never grow 
Too old for fame ; its wreaths will cling to thee, 
Thou New World's glorious Thermopylae! 
Live on, speak on, of heralds thou hadst none ; 
Thy tale is all thy own, but the bright sun 
Was witness of thee, thy struggle, morning, noon^ 
And in the evening shade, the stars and moon 
Beheld thee, and their pale, condoling beams 
Yet mantle thee with still more weird dreams. 
Thy very walls have voices— solemn tones. 
And spirits pulse their breathing in thy stones. 
Not moans, for when I place to them my ears 
I hear the echo of Jacinto's cheers : 
On ! On ! Revenge the Alamo !" 
Freedom and victory over every foe ! 
Live on, speak on, thou glorious Alamo I 
In living strains proclaim thy tale of woe, 
And let thy widowed walls to Texas tell 
How_ her immortal heroes fought and fell ; 
Not in obedience to her sacred laws. 
But love of freedom and of freedom's cause. 
Speak on while eons roll their ages by, 
And tell our Texans how to live and die. 



127 



HYMN TO THE ALAMO. 



By Caft. Reuben M. Potter, U. S. A. 



''Rise ! man the wall — our clarion's blast 

Now sounds its final reveille — 
This dawning morn must be the last 

Our fated band shall ever see. 
To life, but not to hope, farewell ; 

Your trumpet's clang, and cannon's peal, 
And storming shout, and clash of steel 

Is ours, but not our country's knell. 
Welcome the Spartan's death — 

'Tis no despairing strife — 
We fall — we die — but our expiring breath 

Is freedom's breath of life. 

"Here on this new Thermopylae 

Our monument shall tower on high, 
And 'Alamo' hereafter be 

On bloodier fields the battle cry." 
Thus Travis from the rampart cried. 

And when his warriors saw the foe 
Like whelming billows move below, 

At once each dauntless heart replied : 
"Welcome the Spartan's death — 

'Tis no despairing strife — 
We fall — we die — but our expiring breath 

Is freedom's breath of life !" 

"They come — like autumn leaves they fall, 

Yet hordes on hordes they onward rush; 
With gory tramp they mount the wall, 

Till numbers the defenders crush. 
The last was felled^ — the fight to gain — 

Well may the ruffians quake to tell 
How Travis and his hundred fell 

Amid a thousand foemen slain. 
They died the Spartan's death, 

But not in hopeless strife; 
Like brothers died — and their expiring breath 

Was freedom's breath of life." 



128 



PART V. 



THE HONORED DEAD. 

A correct copy of a partial list of the names of those who fell in 
the * 'Alamo," March 6, 1836, on file in the Land Office at Austin, 
Texas, is herewith given : 



NAME 


RANK 


WHERE FROM 


"W Barrett Travis ... . . 


Lt. Colonel. 
Captain 

Lieutenant 
Lt-Adjutant 

Lt.-Mast. Ord. 
Sergt.-Major 

Aide to Travis 

Lt.-Q'rtmaster 

Asst. 

Surgeon 

Ensign 
Private 


Commandant* 
South Carolina. 


James Bowie 


Logan County, Ky. 


J. Washington 




Forsyth 


New York 


Harrison 


Tennessee 


William Blazeley 

Wm. C. M. Baker 


Louisiana N. O. Greys 
Mississippi 


S. B. Evans 


W. R. Carey 


Texas 


S. C Blair 


Texas 


Gilmore 

Robert White 


Tennessee 


John Jones 

J. G. Baugh 


N. O. Greys 


Robert Evans 


Ireland 






Charles Despalier 




Eliel Melton 








Burwell 




Dr. Michison 




Dr Amos Pollard 




Dr. Thompson 


Tennessee 


Green B Jemlson 


South Carolina 


David Crockett 


Texas 


E. Nelson 


Nacogdoches 




Trinity, Texas 


Wm. H. Smith 


Georgia 


Lewis Johnson 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


E. P. Mitchell 


Kentucky 


F. Desanque 

Thurston . . . .... 


Natchez, Miss. 






Christopher Parker 




C. Haskell 


Nacogdoches 


Moses Rose 


Nacogdoches 


Jno. Blair 


Tennessee 


David Wilson 








Stuart 


Navidad, Texas 


W. K. Simpson 


New Orleans 


W. D. Sutherland 


New Orleans 


Dr. W. Howell 

Butler 

Charles Smith 




McGregor 


Scotland 






Chas. Hawkins 


Ireland 


Sam'l Holloway 








C. a. Smith 





129 



THE HONORED T>E.KT>—Cotitinued. 



NAME 


RANK 


WHERE FROM 


Browne 


Private 

Lieutenant 
Private. 


Philadelpl- 

Tennessee 
Pennsylva 

New Orle 
New Orle 
England 

England 
New Orle 
Boston 

Philadelp? 

England 
England 
Wales 

Denmark 

Ireland 

South Car 
Scotland 

(S 
Kentucky 

Opelousas 

Ireland 

Gonzales - 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 

Gonzales 


lia 
nia 

ans 
ans 

ans 
lia 

olina 

hoe Make] 

o . 

|b 
|2 
31 

■°= 

is 

11 
1- • 








Wm. Wells 
















R. W. Valentine 




S. Holloway 




Isaac White 




Day 




Robert Muselman 




Robert Grossman 




Richard Starr 




J. G. Garrett 




James Dimkin 




Robert B. Moore . 




Wm. Linn 




Hutchinson 




Wm. Johnson 




E Nelson 




Geo. Tumlinson 




Wm. Deardorf 




Dan'l Bourne .. 








W. I. Lewis 




Johnston Linley 




Micahjah Autry,.. , 




Lewis Duel 




Charles Zanco 




James Ewing 




Robert Cunningham 




S. Burns 




George Neggin 




J. B Bonham 








Marcus Sewell 


) 




John Flanders 




Isaac Ryan 




I. Jackson 




Almeron Dickinson 




George C. Kimbell 




James George .... 




Dolphin Flovd 




Thomas Jackson 




Jacob Durst 




George W. Cottle 




Andrew Kent 




Thomas R. Miller 




Isaac Baker 




William King 




Jesse McCov . . . 




Claiborne Wright 




William Fishback 




Isaac Millsaps 




Galba Fuqua 




John Davis 




Albert Martin 





130 



THE 


HONORED B^AT>— Continued. 


NAME 


RANK 


WHERE FROM 








Private 


Clerk to Disanque 


B. A. M. Thomas.. 







The foregoing- list 


is not 


included in the g-eneral certificate Feb. 17, 1839. 



A list of the Gonzales Rang-ing- Company of Mounted Volun- 
teers, mustered into service on the 23rd day of February, 1836, by 
Byrd Lockhart, acting commissioner for that purpose and aid-de- 
camp to the acting Governor of Texas, attached to Travis' com- 
mand : 



NAME 


RANK 


REMARKS 


George C. Kimbell 


Lieutenant 
1st Sergeant 


Killed 


Tiriillam A. Irwin 




Jesse McCoy 


Killed 


William Fahbaigh . 


, 




Killed 
Killed 


John G King 


Daniel McCoy, Jr 


Jacob Durst 


Killed 


Frederick C. Elm 




Prospect McCoy 




M. L. Sewell 


Killed 
Killed 


Robert White 


John Ballard 


James Nash 




William Morrison 




Galba Fuqua . . . 


Killed 


A. Devault 


Killed 


John Harriss 


Killed 


Andrew Kent . . . 


Killed 


Isaac Millsaps 


Killed 


William E. Summers 

David Kent 


Killed 


John Davis 


Killed 



To these Mrs. Candelaria adds the following- Mexicans : 

Jose Maria Jimines, Mexico. 



Jose Marera Cabrera, Tula, 

Mexico. 
Elijo or Elias Losoyo, San 

Antonio, Texas. 



— Jacinto, from the coast of 
Texas. 



131 



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